


Silent thunder, as of a thousand wings

by kaasknot



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: (Now with bonus sacrilege), Agency issues, Alternate Universe - Angels, Angst, Bucky Barnes is a dirty liar, Consent Issues, Everyone's a grade-A potty mouth, Flashbacks, Gore typical of wartime, Here there be Google translations, M/M, PTSD, Period-Typical Ableism, Period-typical ignorance of PTSD, Pining, Racism and racial slurs, Religious Imagery, Steve is a chihuahua with aggression issues, Torture, angel!bucky, attempted suicide, thor is not an idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-23 06:19:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 83,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2537363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaasknot/pseuds/kaasknot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A theologian once said that angels are constructs of love and holy rage, and chained to obedience through both. Or maybe a theologian hadn't said that. Maybe it was the Bright One himself, or just Uriel being grumpy.</p>
<p>But Bucky knows that he loves Steve, and he loves his taskmaster of a boss even as he gripes about him over beers after work, and he loves the dames with their red, red lips and smooth, soft curves (and he loves the guys, loves their strength and the tall, proud lines of them), and he loves old Mrs. Greene even when her rheumatism acts up and she turns mean as a wet cat. But he loves Steve most of all, and if Bucky is shackled to mindless obedience because of it, he calls it a good trade, because Steven Grant Rogers is the best person he knows. When it comes down to it, he figures his desire only adds a new dimension to a love that was already there, glowing hot enough to burn.</p>
<p>He was sent to Earth in a cage of mortal flesh to watch over Steve, and Bucky can do no less than love him with all his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was unexpected? And it's changed a lot from where it started—namely, _it wasn't supposed to be this long_.
> 
> I would like to thank [historicallyaccuratesteve](http://historicallyaccuratesteve.tumblr.com/) for existing, and [eiirene](http://cptsmallass.tumblr.com/) for her _fantastic_ artwork (found [here](http://cptsmallass.tumblr.com/post/102539806270/art-for-silent-thunder-as-of-a-thousand-wings-by); go forth and praise her with great praise). I would also like to thank [killerblackberrypie](http://killerblackberrypie.tumblr.com/), [matecky](http://matecky.tumblr.com/), [icansexyouwithmybrain](http://icansexyouwithmybrain.tumblr.com/), and [moldylemons](http://moldylemons.tumblr.com/), who listened patiently while I freaked out and nattered on about useless Cap trivia. You guys are the best.
> 
> Note: the fic is eight chapters. I decided to include liner notes in chapter nine, because I have no life.

_A boy is to be born_.

The Pattern flows without cease in all dimensions, and it is only the sharp eyes of its watchers that catch the snarl of possibility wrinkling its threads.

 _A boy is to be born_ , the Pattern declares. A watcher bends close to examine the snarl. It reveals itself to be a single thread, warped and fragile, spun from a warped and fragile mother. The watcher traces its line forward out of history and frowns, for the fate of countless threads, countless choices and turnings, hinge on the fate of this one.

 _A boy is to be born_ , the Pattern hums into the air, a plucked-string resonance that ruffles the watcher's wavelengths. _A boy is to be born, a boy is to be born, but he may also die_.

The watcher does not sigh, for the watcher does not have the physicality to sigh; nor does it feel exasperation or wearied expectation. It merely follows its duty, recording the manifold twists of fate raveling out from the snarl of the boy's birth and passing the data to its superiors.

A hushed confabulation ensues. Representatives from the Great Three convene to hear the news, to peruse the list, to peer across at the snarl, resting innocently in its nest of tangled threads.

 _This boy should be safeguarded_ , the eldest affirms. _See how monumental his life, should he survive his trials?_

 _All the better to let his life run its course unmolested_ , the youngest replies. _If it is truly so great, then it will carry through with or without our oversight_.

 _No_ , their middle brother cuts in. He gestures to a turning just past the snarl's weakest point, where the possibilities cleave in two. _Observe: without a guiding force at this branch he will not achieve the greatness we desire. And all through here: this surely is death. Already it savors of Azriel. I am sure the High One stares now at his book in despair, for this child insists on having not one death, but five_.

His siblings glance at one another. The eldest indicates his indifference. _He is to be born under your domain. If it is anyone's choice, it is to be yours_.

The middle brother nods. _Then he will be safeguarded. This thread of possibility will do; an angel, I believe, is what is called for_.

 _It is measured out and decreed_ , his sister says. She and her brother stand back, permitting their middle sibling sway. He summons a messenger to his presence.

 _Bring me our most promising recruit_ , he says. _It does not matter which corps_. He watches the Pattern, and already it is shifting, the snarl of threads and uncertain possibilities loosening into coherency. It speaks anew, in a thrum of power: _protect Steven Rogers_.

The Keepers of the Watch bow their heads in reply.

***

James Buchanan Barnes is born March 10, 1917, to Winifred Agatha Barnes and George Buchanan Barnes, Jr. It is eighteen months before the end of the Great War, and a year before the Spanish 'flu rips through the nation. Thousands—millions—of children die, but James survives. His mother clumsily crosses herself when her husband is not looking and thanks God for His mercy.

Little James proves to be an uncommonly bright child. He is crawling by eight months, walking with assistance by ten, and at a year old he can string together coherent, if broken, sentences. His parents are surprised, but pleased; his doctors are shocked and fascinated.

On July 4, 1918, James turns his parents' pride into worry when, at the tender age of sixteen months, he tries to run away from home. It is a poor attempt, but he has learned how to unlatch his crib, and the only obstacle to his leaving their shabby, cramped apartment is that he is too short to reach the doorknob. His mother finds him by the door sobbing brokenheartedly, and she scoops him up with a frightened cry.

"What if he'd gotten into something when we weren't there?" she asks her husband that night, after they put their strangely restless son to bed.

"We can't think about that, Winnie," is his uneasy reply. "It didn't happen, and we'll make sure nothing else does."

If little James remembers the incident, or his parents' distress, he indicates nothing; but it takes a week for him to stop asking, "Steve?" in a piteous voice.

The incident becomes, in time, merely the most notable in a series of small, inexplicable happenings centered around their son. He never cries for food, and often resists being fed; yet once he can be persuaded past the first bite he eats ravenously, often with a rapturous, puzzled expression. He picks up languages the way pockets collect lint; by the age of three he speaks fluent Italian and German, and has learned a smattering of Norwegian and Polish. Worse, he is learning Yiddish from the Jew down the hall, and now that he can reach the doorknob, goes visiting the neighbors when Winifred isn't looking.

Most worryingly, he manages to escape the polio epidemic that sweeps through the neighborhood children. He is blithely unaware of the danger, and rather than maintain quarantine as his mother tells him to, he sneaks out to give his cookies to Martha next door when her legs are put in braces. Winifred examines him each day after for headaches or stiffness, but it is a pointless endeavor: James seems immune to childhood frailty. He has never broken a bone, only rarely has colds, and never a fever, let alone polio. James Buchanan Barnes is the healthiest child on the block.

This should make her happy.

Winifred comes from Orthodox stock, the same as her husband's family—but they are a long way from Romania and many generations removed. George sometimes tells her the half-remembered flotsam of his grandfather's tales, pieced-together accounts of moroi, the zburător, and the little spiriduşi, in the evenings after their son is put to bed. She doesn't know much of religion; she was raised by Catholic nuns, and their lessons were both cryptic and haphazard.

She begins taking her son to the Catholic church around the corner, just in case. It is closer than the Orthodox or the Episcopal churches, a fair concern when she faces teetering stacks of laundry that only rise higher each day, and while mingling so closely with the Irish immigrants makes her nervous, she supposes it all comes out in the wash.

She spends the first weeks silent and withdrawn, speaking only to her son. It doesn't last, for James is a boisterous and outgoing child, and he refuses to let her remain in isolation. He takes to the Masses with wide eyes and wonder, and babbles at the parishioners afterwards in their own guttural tongue.

"Have you baptized him, yet?" Molly Connelly asks her one day, and Winifred, slightly embarrassed, replies, "Reverend Thompson Christened him at his birth."

Molly's eyes widen. "Thompson? The auld Anglican sourpuss? That'll never do. You talk to our Father Brannon. He'll do you up right." She brushes a hand over James's wild curls. "He speaks pretty as a prince," she says. "You must be proud, to have such a son."

Winifred gives her a wan smile and bundles him back home.

When James Buchanan Barnes turns six, he has already read most of the Bible. He understands more than a child his age should, and he frowns at most of what he reads. He asks questions of Father Brannon that leave the old churchman squirming in his chair. He speaks to the boy's mother and father, and while Mr. Barnes brushes off his concerns as simply what is to be expected of any curious boy, there is a shadow in Mrs. Barnes's eye. He finds her after the next Sunday's services with intent to ferret out the cause.

"Is there something about your son you wish to unburden?" he asks. "Something perhaps you feel you cannot share?"

She gives him a wary look. "Is this Confession, Father?"

Father Brannon offers a gentle smile. It is a shame she will not find her own way to God's true path, but her son, at least, is saved. "Only if you wish it, Mrs. Barnes. But I think James is... unusual in more ways than just his interpretation of Scripture?"

Winifred Barnes pales. "One should not be frightened of one's child," she murmurs, half to herself.

Father Brannon frowns. "I beg pardon?"

"I clean laundry for the tenants," she begins, then hesitates.

Father Brannon, sensing blood, nods encouragingly. "Yes?"

"I was pouring out dirty water from boiling Mrs. Partridge's sheets and I—my hands slipped." She shows a livid burn on the palm of her hand. "I only saw James after I dropped the basin, he was _right there_ , there's no way I could have missed—" She swallows. "He wasn't burned at all. He cried, but I think it was more from surprise than pain."

The venerable pastor was anticipating, perhaps, a tendency to bite the neighborhood children, or toys in James's room that were not his own. Such things were unfortunate, but not unknown. This, as reluctant as he is to consider it, speaks more to the stability of the mother than the son. "Ah. I... I see."

Winifred stiffens, her inward-turning gaze sharpening outward to defensiveness. "I know that look, I get it often enough from George. I'm not making this up."

Father Brannon looks over her shoulder, unable to meet her eyes. "Of course not."

That is the last time Winifred Barnes speaks meaningfully with Father Brannon. But James loves church, so she continues bringing him each week. The day of his seventh birthday she convinces George to buy him a simple wooden rosary. Her husband, a devout Marxist and even leerier of the Catholics than his wife, complies with the greatest reluctance, and frowns whenever he sees his son recite the prayers.

Rebecca May Barnes is born that October, and James is enchanted. Winifred, uneasy with her son's distant, un-childlike behavior, smiles in relief when she sees his simple wonder. He sits on the couch with Rebecca in his lap and spends hours staring at her, examining her fingers, her toes, her belly button and hair. He pokes his fingers into her mouth to feel her soft gums, and giggles when she sucks them. He stares into her eyes, and Winifred's unease returns when he looks up and says to her, quite matter-of-fact, that Rebecca is like new paper, unmarked and clean.

"We're making the first fingerprints on her soul," he says, peering into his sister's vague eyes. It is only the tenderness he shows her that keeps Winifred from snatching her daughter away from him.

Rosemary Bernice follows soon after, and James is as fascinated by her as he was by her elder sister. "I see now," he says to the both of them when he doesn't know Winifred is listening. "You aren't new paper, you're shaded with outlines. It is up to us to help fill in the rest." He rubs their bellies. "You have good outlines."

Winifred disappears into the kitchen, her hand over her mouth and tears in her eyes.

Perhaps it would have continued that way. James would have remained the clever boy, growing into a clever, outgoing man and learning beneath Father Brannon's increasingly stifling tutelage. Perhaps he would have worked in the factory, like his father, or entered seminary as Father Brannon pointedly suggested.

Perhaps James Buchanan Barnes would have remained utterly unremarkable, a footnote in the passage of time—but for the fact he met Steven Grant Rogers, and everything changed.

***

"Eat dirt, Rogers!"

Baruchiel cranes his neck to look. He isn't especially interested in the petty fights of children, but this sounds like a good one.

"Make me!"

The voice is tiny, yet determined. A thread in his heart hums to life, and Baruchiel follows its pull into the alley to investigate. He _should_ be buying sugar for his mother—but this is vastly more compelling.

"He pushed me! The little wimp pushed me!" There is the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and a yelp. Baruchiel turns the corner into the alley's end. It is a hot August afternoon, the asphalt bubbling up to stick to the soles of his shoes. The smell of garbage and piss is pungent. He looks, and he sees a small boy, little more than a scrap of flesh pulled over delicate bone, facing down a gang of older children with blood on his teeth and fire in his heart. His resolve is iron.

 _This is he_ , Baruchiel knows in that moment. _This is my charge_. His breath catches and his eyes widen, and a flash of something flickers before his eyes—an impression of devotion beyond anything he has ever known—and he understands that he, a changeless angel of the Most High, will bend and warp for this child. A frisson of fear coils up his spine, shaking his eight-year-old limbs.

Baruchiel has not been moved for eight long years. He has stood calm amidst the storm, dispassionate and distant as a Guardian ought, and naught could shift him from his purpose. Today was no different, though it should have been; for today was the day of his First Communion. He knelt at the rail before Father Brannon and tasted the bitter wine and dry wafer. He felt the joy of celebration in the hearts around him, and he felt their communion with God; but Baruchiel felt nothing, for he is an angel, and angels were not built to have faith in the abstract. Today, he learned that human rites are as empty as air.

Baruchiel is lonely. It has been eight years since he heard the voices of his brethren—a mere pittance to an angel, but a lifetime for a child—and he cries out against the silence. 

Silence, but for this: he looks at a boy standing firm as a tree beside a river, and his heart sings an echo of the Most High.

A shout jerks him from his trance, and he sees that the boy, his Steven Grant Rogers, has pushed the ringleader to the ground. He stands over him, glaring at the others with a righteousness that would not be out of place on the face of Michael himself. Baruchiel smiles in pride for his charge, his boy.

Until the ringleader regains his feet, fists clenched. His face is as dark as a winter storm.

"Hey!" Baruchiel yells. "Why don't you pick on somebody your own size!"

All four boys turn, and Baruchiel reads in their hearts the petty schemes of childhood, their joys and fears, their black hates. He sees the dark cupboard and shouts that mar the soul of the leader. He sees the hope for protection and fear of reprisals that vein through his companions. He sees, and Baruchiel knows compassion.

But he also sees that Steven Rogers has a bloody nose and seizing lungs, and Baruchiel's compassion can only stretch so far. The leader raises a fist, and Baruchiel doesn't think. He wades in, fists flying, and decks the boy as hard as he can. "Leave him alone!"

The pack turns on him, and Baruchiel gains a shiner and split lip. He breaks away to end the fight for good. He plucks at the shadows around him, casting his own closer to its truth; steam from the sewer vents congeals over his shoulders, stretching to the sides of the alley like wings, and he lets a trickle of Heavenly light shine from his eyes.

"Leave him alone," he repeats, commanding in childlike tones. He runs along the ley lines of his opponents' hearts, stoking their apprehension and fear.

The leader is braver than he gave him credit for. "Yeah? You gonna make me, Barnes?"

His name is Franklin Casey McRae. They go to school together. He is tall and mean, and his mother doesn't see the druggist for his syrups and pills. "I'm gonna tell your ma you stole that Baby Ruth bar from the corner store if you don't."

Frankie's face darkens in anger. "You don't have the guts."

Baruchiel doesn't care that Frankie stole candy. But Frankie cares if his mother finds out, and Baruchiel smiles a hungry smile. "Try me and see."

The contest of wills is short and brutal. Frankie glares at Baruchiel, but he breaks first. An angel's stare is not for the guilty to withstand. He mutters to his cronies, "C'mon, let's beat it," and makes sure to ram his shoulder against Baruchiel's as he passes.

Baruchiel turns to his charge.

"I had him," Steven Rogers says between wheezes. "I didn't need your help."

Baruchiel dissipates his summoning and strides forward. "Yeah, well, you got it anyway. Here." He offers his handkerchief. "I'm James Barnes."

"Steve Rogers. Thanks." He dabs his nose, smearing blood all over his face.

Baruchiel rolls his eyes. "Gimme that, you're makin' it worse." He steers them over to a back-alley stoop and sits them down, then takes Steve's head between his hands. His nose isn't broken, he sees that immediately, but it hasn't clotted yet. He shakes his head. "They got you good. Lean forward a bit." He clamps the handkerchief over Steve's nose and steadies him when he wobbles.

"Ow!"

"Baby. Hold that in place for me, would'ya?"

Steve's hand comes up, and he watches Baruchiel curiously. "You don't really look like a James," he says after a moment.

Baruchiel smirks and cocks his head. "I don't, huh?"

"Nope. What's your middle name?"

"Buchanan."

Steve's face crinkles in amusement. "Your parents named you James Buchanan?"

Baruchiel has no real attachment to his given name, but he puffs himself up for the show of it. "Yeah, you got a problem with it?"

"No way. But we can't call you _James Buchanan_." He squints at Baruchiel for a moment, then says, "You look like a Bucky."

The root of Bucky's soul resonates at that pronouncement. _Bucky. You look like a_ Bucky. He hides his shock. Naming is a powerful art, and it takes practitioners many years to gain any proficiency—yet this boy has spoken a name, and it echoes to the very core of Baruchiel's being.

No, not Baruchiel. Not any longer, not truly. It, like James Buchanan Barnes, is just a name. Now, and until Steve decides to change it, his name is Bucky.

He shrugs. "Whatever you say, Stevie."

Steve sticks out his tongue at him. He looks thoughtful for a moment. "Did you really see Frankie McRae steal a Baby Ruth?"

"Nah, I was bluffing."

"What's bluffing?"

Bucky smiles. "I guessed. He's always eating 'em, you know? I made a guess that he'd stole one from the corner store, made like it was true, and he fell for it, which means he had."

Steve frowns. "Ma says it's not right to lie."

"My ma does, too. She lies about a lot, though, so I reckon some lies are better than others."

Steve gives him a probing look. "How old are you?"

 _Three thousand, five hundred and twenty-three_ — "Almost eight and a half."

"Oh. I just turned seven a month ago."

They sit. Bucky watches steam condense on the fire escape.

"So why was Frankie McRae pounding on you?"

Steve shrugs a shoulder. "He said Mitchell Grant was a coward. He's not." A glint enters Steve's eye, and his spine straightens unconsciously. "Ma said he was a soldier in the Great War, an' that's why he's so twitchy even though it's been ages, an' Frankie lit off a firecracker an' laughed when he startled. He was just surprised, is all, he's not yellow. I couldn't let him keep sayin' that."

Bucky feels a wave of emotion—pride, respect, and more complicated, mystifying sentiments—rise through him at Steve's words. So young, and already so wise. He puts his arm around Steve's skinny shoulders. "C'mon. Let's go get some Baby Ruths."

Steve smiles, and hands Bucky back his handkerchief. "Okay."

They giggle all the way to the corner store, telling their funniest stories in an effort to show off. Bucky takes out the dime his mother gave him, and a sinking feeling runs through him. "Hold on," he says. "I need to get sugar."

"Why?" Steve asks.

"Because today was my First Communion, and my mother wants to bake a cake."

Steve gives him a curious look. "Are you Catholic, too?"

Bucky shrugs. "I s'pose I am. I mean, I go to the Masses an' all, but it's kinda boring, you know? You shouldn't need all that to believe in God."

Steve bobs his head. "No way. God is everywhere, right? That means He's at the swimming pool, too."

Bucky laughs. "Yeah, He's at the swimming pool. No more church on Sunday, let's go swimming!"

He asks the salesman for a sack of sugar to go with his candy bars, and gives him the dime. They spill out into the afternoon sunlight with chocolate on their faces and joy in their hearts.

Bucky's mother clucks over his black eye and bloody lip, and welcomes Steve into their house with quiet surprise.

"I'm Steve," he says, bright-eyed and glancing to Bucky. "I just moved from Vinegar Hill."

"It's nice to meet you," Winifred replies. The boys scamper off, and she backs away into the kitchen. "Steve," she mutters to herself, remembering a name called out in a plaintive, infant voice. She watches him carefully, but even she can't hold back her smile when he plays endless games of pat-a-cake with Rosemary, and listens solemnly to Bucky's every word as to how beautiful his little sisters are, even though they're still babies and most boys his age wouldn't care. Perhaps it truly _is_ nothing to fret about.

Bucky watches Steve play with Rosie, and his heart fills with gladness. He is gone from the Host, parted from his kin for as long as his duty demands; this is all he has left. He sits beside Steve and looks into his beautiful, Heaven-touched face, and he is no longer lonely.

***

Those are their halcyon days, when they run like mad things through the streets of Brooklyn and read pulp novels and comics when it gets too hot. They eat apples on the fire escape and ride the subway when they have spare nickels. It is easy for Bucky to be Steve's Guardian, then. Their mothers roll their eyes at their sons and share tips on cold remedies; their meals are ample, their clothes almost new and their beds warm and soft.

Bucky runs to Steve's apartment after school, carrying his lessons and the funnies underneath, and together they make a fort under the covers and whisper secrets to each other until it's time to go home, and never mind Steve's rattling lungs.

Steve saves up his pennies and treats them to licorice and caramels at the drugstore, and Bucky smiles under the December sky and feels as warm as June.

"Stevie, wait up!"

"Hurry, we'll miss it!"

"I'm here, I'm here. Geez, you run awful fast for a skinny little twerp."

"Yeah? Well, my grandma runs faster than you."

"You're a punk!"

"No, I'm not!"

***

Steve catches strep from the Polish kid down the road. Bucky watches as first he coughs, then coughs harder, then swells up like a bullfrog when his lymph nodes catch on. He watches as Mrs. Rogers, who is a nurse over at the Brooklyn Hospital Center, palpates his neck and peers down his throat, her brow creasing in worry. She shoos Bucky from the room, but he wriggles by when she's not looking and jumps up on Steve's bed.

"Hey, Bucky," Steve croaks. He is pale, tired. He has lost weight because it hurts to swallow.

"Hey, Stevie." Bucky touches Steve's throat, and he feels the raging fire of battle within, Stevie's body fighting tooth and nail against the bacterium. Steve swallows, grimacing.

"Bucky, I told you not to come in here," Mrs. Rogers says in her soft lilt. She bustles in, a bowl of broth in her hands. Dark circles underline her eyes.

"I'll be fine, Mrs. Rogers," he says, taking Steve's hand where it lies on the blankets. "'Sides, I gotta keep Steve company. Right, Steve?"

"Yeah."

She sets down the broth. Bucky can hear the hunger pangs her body is sending out, but he has noticed that Sarah Rogers eats on a very precise schedule, and always less than she wants.

"No. It's too dangerous for you. Go on, go outside and play."

Bucky sullenly complies, squeezing Steve's hand before letting go. He runs down the stairs, taking out his frustration in pounding hops from step to step. There's a game of stickball right outside the door; he doesn't know the kids very well, it's a different street from his, after all, but they welcome him easily enough. Bucky runs harder and throws faster, and he hits a home run every time. His team trounces the other guys, but his heart and mind are fixed upstairs, beside a small boy coughing through his tears.

Steve seems to get better for a few days, his throat settling down to a more manageable pain, and Mrs. Rogers tentatively lets Bucky back in his room.

But then the worst happens. Bucky wakes up one morning from where he is lying curled back to back against Steve, and the feeling of his charge's body has changed. He's warmer, drier, quieter. He turns to look, and he sees the ominous red flush creeping up Steve's neck and cheeks. Bucky knows what this is, every child does.

Scarlet fever.

"Mrs. Rogers!" he yells, panic boiling in his veins. "Mrs. Rogers, quick!"

"Not so loud, Bucky," Steve murmurs, and his eyes are glassy in the morning light.

Bucky is summarily ejected from the room. He can't go home, not with two small children waiting, so he takes to sleeping on the floor outside Steve's door, piling the couch cushions together and heaping spare blankets over the top. He hears Mrs. Rogers's whispered prayers, hears the rasp of damp cloths against Steve's skin. Steve rambles whenever he's awake, and his sleep is restless.

Bucky knows he won't catch sick. He sees into his body, and the strep could find no purchase. Steve is harmless to him. He tries to explain to Mrs. Rogers that he could stand in the middle of a TB ward and come out clean, but she won't hear a word.

"You stay right where you are, James Barnes. Don't you dare step into this room, am I clear?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She is very clear. Bucky sees precisely the fear in her heart: that her son will infect his friend, and that he will carry it to his sisters, and that they will sicken and die. Visions of an outbreak tearing through the neighborhood haunt her dreams. But Bucky is not just a boy, and when she goes out to fetch groceries, Bucky sneaks into Steve's room.

A striated pall hangs over Steve's soul, inflamed and oozing infection. Bucky gasps. He has never seen sickness like this; angels are incorporeal, and they have no mortal bodies to suffer. Neither has he seen a human sick up close, for the Barneses are a sturdy lot, even discounting Bucky.

Steve, however, is flushed and still, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Stevie?" he asks, heart in his throat.

Steve blinks slowly and turns his head to look at Bucky. He blinks again, this time as though confused, and his eyes widen. He takes a deep breath, and then he screams.

It is a high-pitched scream of terror, hoarse and primal and uncomprehending. Bucky freezes. An image flashes in his mind of an impossibly tall being, misshapen by the outline of a dozen wings and covered with lidless, staring eyes; its head flickers through a rank of fearsome animals, and each is saying, "Stevie? Stevie?" in a hollow voice fit to raise the hairs on the back of Bucky's neck.

It's him. Steve is seeing his true form. He runs from the room, slamming the door behind him, but Steve's screams don't stop until exhaustion drags them down into incoherent sobs. Bucky curls up on his pile of cushions and rocks himself, horrified. He starts to cry as well, hating himself for it but unable to stop.

Mrs. Rogers bursts in the front door, dropping her purchases in the entryway in her rush to Steve's side. "What happened?" she demands.

"I don't know," Bucky lies. "He just started screaming."

Mrs. Rogers's face goes white. "He's hallucinating," she says, and scoops her son into her arms, cradling him to her chest. She whispers soothing words, and eventually the sobs fade. Bucky tucks his face against his knees and shudders.

The fever runs its course a few days later, but not before stealing away the strength of Steve's once-sturdy heart. Bucky hugs him fiercely and sends thanks to God for his recovery, no matter how bittersweet it is.

***

Two years later Steve catches strep again, and this time it turns into rheumatic fever. Mrs. Rogers doesn't bother trying to keep Bucky out; she lays one hand on Steve's fevered chest and strokes his hair with the other, and her prayers are unceasing. " _Mea culpa, mea culpa_ ," she whispers. " _Mea maxima culpa_." She pays no mind to the stubbornly healthy ten-year-old boy staring at her son, a strange, white-hot fire in his eyes.

Steve doesn't die from the fever, but he never runs again. His heart sees to that.

***

There is a devil that comes to ride on Steve's shoulders, as he grows older. It digs in its spurs and drives him to fight after fight he has no way of winning. Bucky hears the words whispered behind Steve's back: _Look at that, Rogers is sick again, what a surprise_ , and _He'll never amount to anything, just be a drain on society_ , and worst of all, _His mother should have drowned him at birth_. They make Bucky's blood boil, but they make Steve stand as tall as he can and demand they say it to his face.

Often, they don't. Sometimes, they do. Those times, Steve comes home bruised and bloody, his hair mussed and anger hot beneath his skin, and his mother tuts while Bucky bites his lip to keep from yelling.

When Mrs. Rogers isn't looking, Bucky teaches Steve to throw a punch, to save his knuckles. Teaches him how to hold himself despite his bent back, how to shift his weight to compensate for the unevenness of his reach, how to take advantage of the openings his opponents make. It's little enough, and more often than not Bucky has to bail him out anyway, but they're nigh inseparable, so it makes no difference. Bucky comes to school with bruises and bright, cocky grins, and he takes the name of scrapper with pride.

And yet, the more fights Steve gets into, the more Bucky realizes his charge is genuinely _good_. He doesn't just fight for himself, but for others, too. His fights are for the noble causes: for injustice, to stop cruelty, for what's right. Steven Grant Rogers _cares_. He rescues kittens from drainpipes and punches bullies on the nose and sits with Mr. Tripp in the afternoons, listening to him ramble about his sons, all three dead in the war, and his daughter, married and living in Schenectady with four children of her own.

"He's lonely," Steve says. "There's no one here for him."

"He smells like cabbage," Bucky replies. He's an angel, not a saint.

Steve rolls his eyes and pushes him into the kitchen. "Ma made soda bread," he says. "Maybe if you ask nice you can have some." Bucky knows he can, because it has raisins in it and Mrs. Rogers doesn't eat sweets.

Sarah Rogers is as gentle as her son is fierce, and as fierce as he is gentle. She works a grueling schedule, and when she comes home Bucky smells sickness and disinfectant on her clothes, and sees exhaustion in her eyes. Sometimes, after the hardest shifts, he smells the sweetness on her breath that means she needs another dose of insulin. She is frail, but she is always there for her son, always feeds him and Bucky as much as they can hold, and patches their cuts with steady hands. She never speaks of the hard hours she works, or her worry when Steve starts wheezing, or what she'll do when their medications run empty right before rent is due.

She is a good woman. Bucky sees it in her soul. But she is human, and frail, and her son is worse.

All Creation know that angels are strong. They are beings of energy, of Will, of purpose. Angels feel the thrum of the universe and play harmonics across it. Angels see far, and hear further; they are mighty. Bucky is an angel, and unwavering strength is his due.

By all rights he should see men as lesser beings, as weak, awkward gobbets of meat. Lord knows there are those of his kind that do. Keeping company with Steve and Sarah Rogers, the epitome of frangible, ephemeral humanity, should do little but enhance that belief—but the longer Bucky stays with them, the more he realizes it is not true, that it is impossibly far from the truth.

He frowns at the cut on his hand, a jagged slice leaking blood over his fingers. The pain of it is astounding. He watches red drops force their way from his skin by the pounding of his heart; he feels shock tremble in his limbs. The moment is bright and clear in his mind.

This is what is true: the strength of men's sight is weak compared to what an angel might see. Their will, insignificant. Before Bucky was born, he could see an ant three miles away twitch in instinctual fear. He could hear a man's darkest thought whispered into the black of night. He could hold fast for countless eons until reinforcements arrived. Before he was born, he was mighty.

But now he is a man himself, or will be soon, and his body is the strongest thing left to him. He is grounded by the press of the earth against his feet. His vision may be dim, and the world around him may seem one of shadows and sadness, but the sun is warm on his skin, and the pain in his hand sends waves of gooseflesh over his arms and back. There is something in the solidity of his frantic heartbeat that is reminiscent of flight.

"Geez, Buck, what did you do to yourself?"

"C-coffee can lid," he manages.

"Gotta look out for those. C'mon, let's get you inside so Ma can patch you up."

Steve Rogers is weak. He catches bronchitis like clockwork every spring when it gets warmer and the mold starts growing. His vision is dreadful; the doctors talk about myopia and astigmatism over their heads, and Bucky would be annoyed, but he _is_ still a child, so he can't blame them. Steve Rogers is deaf in one ear. Steve Rogers has anemia. Steve Rogers's spine twists to one side, making the muscles of his back clench and spasm.

Steve Rogers has more will than ten men, but compared to an angel he is a puff of air against a gale.

And yet.

Steve's hand on his wrist is cool. It is a brand against his skin. Bucky feels Steve's pulse thrum against his own, and it is the most immediate thing he has felt in three millennia of existence. Steve is _here_ , and he is _alive_.

It is the truest thing in Bucky's narrowed world.

***

"Can't believe the Robins finished sixth again."

"What's that, four times now?"

"Think so. Hey, that's _my_ Dazzy Vance card! You go get your own!"

"Aw, c'mon. I don't have any more pennies, and Ma wouldn't let me buy any more gum even if I did. I'll trade you my Burleigh Grimes."

"Not a chance, Barnes. Unless..."

"No. Jake Daubert's not up for grabs."

"Then get your paws off Dazzy Vance."

"You're a hard man, Steve Rogers."

***

Bucky Barnes may be a child, but he isn't naive. He knows sooner or later things will change, that he and Steve will grow up and be forced by life to go their separate ways, Guardian or no. But there is an innocence in his heart, and he never knew it was there until it was shattered.

First it is a broken leg, the first real injury Bucky has ever had. He is forced to hobble around on crutches, unable to run and jump as he desperately needs to spend his energy and feel _free_. It is miserable and frightening, and only Steve, walking slowly beside him carrying his books, or sitting at his bedside without a care for his own health, can keep him calm.

Then Bucky's father dies in a factory accident, a crucible of unrefined ore snapping its chain and crushing him and three other workers beneath it. His mother is inconsolable; Bucky watches her in confusion. Angels do not die. They understand death, but they do not feel that profoundest touch directly. Bucky curls around the hollow ache in his stomach.

He had not been close to George Barnes. His father had never been a demonstrative man, preferring to read aloud Socialist rhetoric than to engage in intimate conversation with his son. Bucky is surprised how much the empty place at the dinner table, the silence where once had been political discourse, the lack of whiskery kisses on his forehead when he feigned sleep—he is surprised at how much these absences hurt.

Is this what it means to be human? To love as indiscriminately as an angel, but to feel the consequences of it? He touches the tears that run down his face, and tries to help his mother keep strong. It is hard, especially after she comes back from the doctor. She is three months pregnant with her fourth child. Mrs. Rogers comes over that day, and she makes Winifred soothing tisanes and sits with her at the kitchen table, sharing her burden.

Bucky sits beside Steve on the couch. He hadn't known Joseph Rogers died in the Great War, or that he never got to see his newborn son. Steve shrugs. "It's ancient history," he says, but Bucky can see the old longing in his heart, worn smooth with time and frequent handling. Bucky vows to speak often and well of George Barnes, for the sake of his mother's baby.

For two months there's a heavy, foreboding air about his mother, as though she expects the worst. Bucky ignores it, thinking it human superstition, but then comes Black Tuesday, and with it goes the last of Bucky's human innocence. He hears his mother crying at night, muffling her sobs against his father's coat. He sees the worry and gray, sagging fear in the faces around him. WALL ST. IN PANIC AS STOCKS CRASH! scream the headlines. Hope lingers for a week or two; Mr. Watkins next door can be heard through the walls announcing it is a short-term blow, that the stock market will recover in no time.

November proves Mr. Watkins wrong. Bucky sits with Steve on the fire escape outside Steve's bedroom window and watches as people try to sell their cars, their family heirlooms, their spare clothes. Some sell apples or pencils, or shreds of anything they can scavenge.

"Ma said she'll keep her job," Steve whispers to him, as though he's afraid to jinx her good fortune.

Bucky swallows. His ma takes in laundry and sewing for their building. He doesn't know if it will be enough, anymore, not with midwife's fees and the money they owe for the funeral. For the first time he is torn between duties. There is his chief duty to Steve, but neither can he neglect his mortal family. Rebecca still asks for Papa, and Rosemary cries angrily at the thin soup they've begun to eat for every meal.

"I can probably find work somewhere," he says, willing it to be true.

"You're twelve," Steve says, frowning. "There's laws or something."

"Nah, just means I can't work a factory job," Bucky replies. "I can get something else, like selling papers. Or, hey, maybe I could get a job at Coney Island! What do you say to _that_ , Stevie? I'd get to ride the Thunderbolt and the Cyclone every day!"

"We can help," Steve says, ignoring Bucky's patter. "If you get stuck. We don't need much."

Bucky shakes his head. "I can't take your money, Steve."

Steve frowns and lights up another asthma cigarette. Winter is coming on, and the cold does nothing good for his lungs. "I'm serious, Bucky. I'm only eleven, and Ma wouldn't let me work even if I could, but whatever I can do, just say the word."

Tears prick Bucky's eyes. He blinks them back. "You're the best friend a kid could ever have, Steve Rogers," he says, and throws an arm around his shoulders.

He feels Steve's heart lighten. He's too smart to believe Bucky's brave face completely, but it's enough. Bucky bites his lip when Steve isn't watching. _Please, let it be enough_.

***

He gets a job with Mr. Grossman down the street at the Jewish bakery. His fluency in Hebrew and Yiddish impress the baker, and he hires Bucky part-time to deliver his goods to the older members of the Jewish community who can't make it to his store. The pay is only a couple of pennies a day, but it adds up, and more importantly, Mr. Grossman doesn't expect Bucky to quit school.

"Look at you, you're smarter than I am," the old man says. "A gentile who speaks Hebrew like a rabbi. No, you get your learning, Barnes, and you get a better job than this, you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Bucky answers, and carefully loads his delivery box.

It's strange, thinking about the future. When he was younger and adults asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, Bucky had a list of answers that made them smile and nod knowingly. But now, when he permits himself to truly think about it, the only thing he can say with certainty is, "By Steve's side." For an angel with a charge, there is no higher wish.

Suddenly the weight of society's expectations are an unwelcome burden, and the truth that childhood will not last forever sits heavy in his stomach.

Daisy Georgina Barnes is born January 15, 1930, a beautiful, colicky baby that fascinates Bucky as did both her sisters. He's learned his way around a baby by now, but he still marvels over the smallness of her feet and the mysteries in her vague, infant stare. "Your daddy got me my rosary even though he thought it was useless," Bucky tells her, cradling her over the radiator to keep her warm. "He was kind and generous. If he's in Heaven, or wherever it is atheists go, he's looking down on you, Daisy-girl, and he loves you, no matter what."

His mother, meanwhile, grows quieter and quieter, and takes to counting the money she and her son bring in morning and night, as though it might have somehow increased without her looking.

Months pass. The Dow Jones shows no signs of an upturn, instead lingering at a low-level, miserable average, and unemployment skyrockets. Mr. Watkins shifts his ranting to President Hoover's inadequacy as shantytowns sprout across Prospect Park.

Bucky grows, and he is certain it is his angelic constitution alone that gives him the fortitude for it. "Another growth spurt," his mother sighs, eyeing the fraying cuffs of his trousers. "I'll see if I can hem something of your father's to fit." The shoes are a touch too large, but newspaper stuffed into the toes helps with that. The jackets and shirts still smell like his father's pipe smoke.

He is more concerned with Steve's growth than his own. No matter how the years change, Steve remains small and thin. Mrs. Rogers tries, but decent food is harder and harder to come by, and Steve has never been truly healthy.

There is only so much Bucky can do about it, short of nudging the hospital director to increase Sarah Rogers's pay.

He pauses, a pilfered apple halfway to his mouth. He supposes he could do that. It wouldn't take more than a _suggestion_ and Steve could have actual chicken in his chicken soup.

Would that be overstepping his bounds? He is expected to watch over Steve, yes, but what are the limits of what he is allowed to do for his sake? He growls and tears off a bite. He misses the certitude of his angelic form. This mortal shell holds nothing for him but overstimulation and too many doubts.

He lets out a sigh. He won't do it. They aren't the only ones struggling, and besides, if Steve knew he wouldn't approve.

When he turns sixteen Bucky takes an early shift stocking produce at the Romanian grocery store on Eastern. He grows stronger in leaps and bounds, and Steve doesn't. It rankles him, Bucky can tell. More than ever Bucky is having to bail Steve out of fights, and he takes to checking alleys and back lots for tenacious, towheaded figures staring inequality in the face. It's almost like breathing: find Steve fighting against too many taller, stronger boys and wade in with fists flying and shouted insults on his tongue. Eventually it gets around that you only mess with Steve Rogers if you want to mess with Bucky Barnes, too.

"I had 'em on the ropes," Steve says.

"I know you did," Bucky replies. "Thought I'd help out, is all."

Steve makes sure Bucky never sees his anger and resentment, or his embarrassment at his own perceived weakness, but even with mortal eyes Bucky can see that Steve is ashamed of his frailty. It makes him stubborn, and that makes him push himself, to show that he isn't useless, that being short and bent and sickly doesn't make him a burden. Bucky's heart aches. He wishes he could ease Steve's trial, but if the alternative is to let him get pasted by the neighborhood yahoos Bucky refuses to accept it. As long as Steve holds fast to ideals regardless of opposition, Bucky will stand by his side, ready to pull him out of the fire.

He supposes it's why he needs a Guardian in the first place.

It's on a summer day in 1933 that Bucky is reminded of the other reason Steve Rogers needs a Guardian.

They're in an abandoned factory sunk by the Depression; Bucky's snagged a bottle of bathtub gin off Old Man Withers, and Steve shows him the broken board covering the side door. They wander around, staring up at the cavernous, cathedral-like interior and swapping the bottle back and forth, all while making like the burn doesn't bring tears to their eyes.

Steve kicks at a pile of dead leaves. "This used to be a shoe factory, didn't it?" He steps under a wash of light from the grimy windows high above.

Bucky trails behind him, peering around at the piles of trash heaped in the corners, at the dust kicked up by their footsteps, at the decaying hulks of the machines that loom in the shadows. He takes a sip. "Yeah."

"This isn't right," Steve says. "It's just not right."

"Not much we can do about it."

Steve's jaw firms like he's about to make one of his crazy stands, but he looks down and scuffs his feet. "There should be."

"What, you wanna start it up again? Get those machines makin' wing-tips again? No one's buying shoes, these days, Steve. Least not the ones who'd buy factory-made shoes."

"Yeah." He looks helpless and frustrated, and Bucky hates that look on Steve. He hands him the bottle.

"Things'll get better," he says. "They have to. Nowhere to go but up."

Steve takes a drink. "Shouldn't have gone down in the first place."

"Ah, Stevie," Bucky says, and he feels the weight of his years pressing on him. "All things gotta come down, eventually. That's time. But if you live long enough, you get to see it come back up, again. And if you're lucky, you get to help build it. It ain't the end of the line, yet. Not by a long shot. We just gotta stick with it."

Steve looks to him, looks into him, his eyes dark and fathomless in the gloom. "You with me, Buck? To the end of the line?"

Bucky nods. "Angels couldn't tear me from your side."

As if in reply, a flock of pigeons startles from the rafters, fluttering and cooing and sweeping down on them in a shower of dust. They duck, shielding their heads, and the covey flies out a broken window. Bucky straightens first, forcing a lop-sided grin over his sudden dread. "Thinkin' maybe I shouldn't have—Steve?"

Steve is bent over, his hands on his knees, and he's struggling for breath. "B-buh—"

Bucky's insides freeze. "Shit. _Shit_ , we gotta get you outside. Was it the dust?"

Steve nods, his eyes wide, and his breath wheezes in his throat. God, he's suffocating, and it's on nothing but thin air. Bucky grabs his arm and throws it over his shoulder, and drags him back to the busted board. The bottle lies forgotten on the ground.

It's a bright, sunny day, the clouds high and wispy in the sky, and Bucky's heart is cold as he sits on the warm ground. He's leaning back against the rusted hulk of an old Buick, Steve tucked between his legs, and his back is pressed against Bucky's chest. "C'mon, Stevie," he murmurs, forcing himself to breathe in a slow, steady rhythm despite the fear choking him. "Nice and easy, breathe with me, you can do it, just in and out..."

Steve is shaking in his arms, arching and gulping for air that's not getting through to his lungs. Tears track down his cheeks; Bucky can feel his blind panic, and he presses a trembling hand over Steve's chest. His own breath stutters. "Oh, no."

Steve's heart has an arrhythmia on the best of days, and the valves leak like a sieve—but now it's going ninety miles an hour, and it's not pumping a damn thing. Its spastic, lopsided pulse vibrates against Bucky's hand. Steve lets out a strained whimper. His lips are turning blue, and his fingers where they're clenched in Bucky's pant-legs are ice-cold.

"Oh, God," Bucky whispers. "You gotta stay with me, Stevie, it ain't your time yet. It can't be. _Shit_ , what do I do?" His mind races, and he rubs gentle circles over Steve's chest.

It's the flickering sparks of electricity shorting through his heart that give him the idea.

An angel is made of pure energy; manipulating it is their stock in trade. Bucky presses his hands against Steve's chest and feels the poles of the charge. He summons static from their clothes and shifts his grip, moving one hand beneath Steve's collarbone, the other near his floating ribs. He hesitates a moment, then with a soft breath, sends the charge jolting from one hand to the other through Steve's body. Steve twitches, and for a bare second his heart stops.

It's the longest second of Bucky's life. _Please_ , he prays to the silent heavens. _Please don't let me have killed him_. But then he feels it: the thready _lub-swish-dub_ of Steve's heartbeat.

He gasps in relief and clenches his stinging hands into fists. He crushes Steve against him, fighting his tears, and keeps an iron hold on his breathing. He feels lightheaded. "That's it, Stevie," he says. He presses his cheek against Steve's. "Just breathe. In and out, follow me."

It seems hours pass before Steve's lungs ease up. He sags back into Bucky's arms, shaking with exhaustion, face drawn and sweaty. Bucky runs a hand through his hair. It's softer than it looks, and fine as silk between his fingers.

"God, don't scare me like that," Bucky whispers, too overcome yet to trust his voice not to crack.

"Din' mean to."

"Yeah. Yeah. Just don't do it again, okay?"

"'Kay."

Bucky half-carries him home, and Mrs. Rogers's face, when he explains what happened, is torn between horror, sick relief and gratitude so profound the words get stuck in her throat. She has Steve breathe into the nebulizer for a while, then sends him to bed. He falls asleep from one moment to the next.

Bucky she feeds beans flavored with a bit of hoarded bacon, watching to make sure he eats it all, and then hugs him so tight he feels his ribs creak. And Bucky, he means to stay strong, but he's still a boy and he just watched Steve nearly die. He curls himself around Sarah Rogers's tiny frame and cries into her shoulder. She strokes his hair and whispers soothing words.

"Sometimes I swear you're his guardian angel," she says, and Bucky cries harder.

***

The remainder of the thirties pass in a wave of hand-me-downs and patched, second-hand clothes. Those years taste of watery cabbage-and-potato soup, and Bucky grows up strong despite. He explores his youthful, vital body, and his first orgasm is almost better than Revelation. Once more he finds himself conflicted, for while the strength of his dedication is unmoved, his body has other ideas.

He takes to slicking his hair back the way his father did, and learns from his mother and sisters how to alter his clothes. He starts setting aside a small portion of his pay for dates. It takes him time to figure out the rules: girls are fair game, but be cautious asking boys; don't be too frank—flirting and cleverness are far more enjoyable; and dancing? Dancing is _always_ a good idea.

High school feels like a holding pattern, a way to pass the time before life begins. Bucky tries to enjoy his last years of childhood, but it's been so long since he felt like a child he chafes against the idea. He graduates with top marks, to the continual, amusing surprise of his teachers, and two years later Steve graduates, his grades no more than fair due to his constant illness, and with a black mark on his reputation that lumps him in with the rest of the neighborhood troublemakers. They make noise about moving in together, but Steve catches his spring bout of bronchitis and their plans grind to a halt while he recovers.

Bucky divides his time between work, sitting at Steve's bedside and stepping out. He learns the best clubs to go to, either for girls or boys, and how to draw attention away from his shabby clothes and rough speech. He learns the social power of walking out with the right girls in the right places, and in dark alleys down by the shipyards he learns the sharp rush of pleasure shared with another.

He notices in an abstract way that Steve isn't joining him in this awakening, but it doesn't come to a head until Bucky is nineteen and Steve is eighteen and considering taking formal art classes over the summer.

"You mean someone just sits naked in the middle of the room and everyone draws 'em?"

"Yeah, Buck, I already told you." It's hot for May. They're at Steve's place, where they usually hang out these days because Bucky's apartment is crowded and Mrs. Rogers works long hours. Steve's asthma is flaring. He's wheezing like a bellows, and testier than usual as a result. "Miss Tomlin said it could really help my figure drawing."

"But—why would anyone do that? Be drawn naked, I mean."

"Same reason you haul crates at Lăcustă's," Steve says. "It pays."

Bucky can't fault that logic. However, "Ain't you worried you'll, you know, like what you see?"

Steve gives him an exasperated, irritated look. "You mean get a lift? No, Bucky, I'm not worried, because it's an art class, not a damn cat house."

Bucky sits back, surprised at the swear. "What was that all about?"

"Well, Buck, when a person has a skill they want to improve, sometimes they take special classes to—"

"Not the drawing, you dummy," Bucky snaps. "Why are you angry at me? 'Cause that was more than just me being my usual idiot self."

Steve glares at him for a moment, then goes back to his homework without answering. Bucky frowns, worry settling in his gut. "Steve, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Bucky can be as stubborn as Steve when he wants to be, and this is setting off sirens left and right in Bucky's brain. "It's not nothing. Are you sick again?"

"For Chrissakes, Bucky!" Steve explodes, throwing his pencil down. "I'm not sick, I'm fine! And if I were sick, it'd be of you harping on me until you go out on your next date, and then forgetting whether I said good or bad!"

Bucky blinks, Steve's eyes widen, and the silence stretches. "Forget I said that," Steve says hurriedly, and Bucky shakes his head.

"Not a chance." He frowns. "It bothers you, that I go out on dates?"

Bucky can't see Steve's face, the way he's looking down at his lap, but his ears are bright red. "Sometimes," he mumbles. "It's just, we don't hang out as much, anymore. Starting to feel like the third wheel when we do."

"Oh." Bucky's mind whirls. "Don't—don't you ever go out on dates of your own?" He scrabbles through his memories, trying to recall if Steve'd ever mentioned a girl, or spent a night out. Aside from a few crushes he'd teased him about, he comes up blank.

"No." Steve still can't meet Bucky's eyes. He looks mortified, ashamed, and Bucky wants to throw his arms around him. "I don't go out on dates. Not many dames are interested in a guy like me."

"That's..." Bucky trails off, horrified with himself. He's been wasting time on frivolous pleasure while his charge has been hurting.

Steve shrugs. "It is what it is. I can't blame 'em, I mean, look at me."

 _I am looking_ , Bucky thinks, only it seems as though for the first time he actually does. He looks, and he sees how Steve's fair hair has darkened to burnished gold, how his lashes lay long against his cheek, how the pale, sickly cast to his skin creates a fragile beauty that Bucky has never let himself notice. And Steve _is_ beautiful: all lithe, slender limbs and sharp edges. Bucky shudders beneath a sudden wave of arousal and confusion.

Does Steve even want to... with a guy? Bucky doesn't know. It's not something that's ever spoken of. Bucky may be open to all comers, but he's heard the slurs thrown at the drag queens and punks down on Sands Street, and he knows men with men (and women with women, too) is somehow immoral. It's definitely illegal, if nothing else. Bucky has had to learn circumspection with his pleasure.

Bucky licks his lips, aware he's nudging out on thin ice. He hesitates, but this is _Steve_ , and Steve wouldn't know how to be prejudiced if his life depended on it. "Any fellas, then?"

Steve's eyes widen. "What! Bucky, that's—why would you ask that!"

It's Bucky's turn to look down at his knees. "Not all my dates are with girls," he says simply. "I know a thing or two about it."

He heard Steve defending Tiny Pete not even two days ago, and he's never been the one shouting abuse on the street corners. That's not who Steve is. But it might be different, now that it's his best friend. Bucky bites his lip. He doesn't think he could handle it, if Steve turned from him in disgust.

He hears the click of Steve's throat as he swallows. "I—Bucky, I didn't... Why didn't you tell me?" There is no rejection in his tone, merely shock and confusion.

The rush of relief through Bucky's chest nearly takes his breath away. "Why didn't you tell me you weren't getting any dates at all? Geez, Stevie, that's something I can help with."

And just like that Steve's irritation is back. "I don't need your help, Buck."

"Looks to me like you do. I know a couple'a girls, we can go out together, you know, a double-date."

"If you think I'm going on a—"

"Or I could take you to one of the queer bars I know." Bucky's staring at the wall, mouth dry as a bone. Across from him, Steve falls dead-silent. Bucky presses on. "They don't mind 'em small, there. You'd be a hit."

Steve's jaw firms, and his voice when he speaks is soft. "I'm not a girl, Bucky. I won't be their girl."

"Didn't say that," Bucky says. "There's more'n one kind of fairy out there. Just... think about it." He has to get away. The air is too close, too hot; he can smell Steve's hair cream and his soap and the graphite smell of his pencils, and he imagines sucking bruises into his slender neck and it's too much.

"Bucky, wait," Steve calls out, but Bucky's already out the door.

***

A theologian once said that angels are constructs of love and holy rage, and chained to obedience through both. Or maybe a theologian hadn't said that. Maybe it was the Bright One himself, or just Uriel being grumpy.

But Bucky knows that he loves Steve, and he loves his taskmaster of a boss even as he gripes about him over beers after work, and he loves the dames with their red, red lips and smooth, soft curves (and he loves the guys, loves their strength and the tall, proud lines of them), and he loves old Mrs. Greene even when her rheumatism acts up and she turns mean as a wet cat. But he loves Steve most of all, and if Bucky is shackled to mindless obedience because of it, he calls it a good trade, because Steven Grant Rogers is the best person he knows. When it comes down to it, he figures his desire only adds a new dimension to a love that was already there, glowing hot enough to burn.

He was sent to Earth in a cage of mortal flesh to watch over Steve, and Bucky can do no less than love him with all his heart.


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky avoids Steve for almost two weeks after their conversation. It isn't hard; they don't exactly live next door, and they no longer go to school together. Bucky throws himself into his work, and then throws himself into dancing and drinking and fucking. He tries to forget that image in his mind, of Steve beautiful and vulnerable and _his_ , but it won't leave, and it isn't until he finds himself flirting with a short, waifish blond at the drag set that he realizes it isn't going to disappear no matter how far he crawls down a bottle. He smiles apologetically and proceeds to get himself blind drunk.

He escapes his first police raid that week.

He's lounging at the bar at Miss Eileen's Canteen, knocking back drinks the gals buy him. The queens like Bucky. He always knows without asking how they liked to be called, whether in drag or out, and he never takes liberties they don't want him to.

It's a dance night—nothing like the balls up in Harlem he hears about from the older dames before Prohibition got pulled back, but it's not bad for Brooklyn—and he watches the couples spin around with a wistful smile on his face. He wouldn't mind taking Steve dancing someday. He quashes the thought before he can linger on it too long.

He tries to lose himself in the hopes and squabbles of others, but there's something off, tonight. Bucky can smell it in the air. There's a tension flickering through the minds around him that doesn't belong. It takes him a minute, but when he figures it out, he sets down his glass, wipes the condensation off on his pants, and flags down Miss Eileen.

"Think there's gonna be a raid," he says.

She straightens and stares down at him with hard eyes. "It's a good night. Could lose a lot of money on a guess."

"Got a feeling."

Bucky's feelings have a reputation all their own. He'd put Hooch and Pauline together, after all, and deflects the coppers' attention from overhasty couples whenever he's nearby. He's become a bit of a good luck charm to the queers of Brooklyn. He meets her gaze steadily, and Miss Eileen gives a short nod. She turns and hollers to Cooper and Big Ted behind the bar. "Sound it, boys! We've got a raid coming!"

Bucky picks his way through the controlled chaos that follows. The front door is a risk, but the door through the alley might be even more so. The best way to deal with the cops, really, is to barrel out en masse, too many for them to pin down at once. Bucky helps Miss Eileen sort out groups and saves glasses from shattering in the press.

They're among the last to leave. Miss Eileen disappears into the office and comes out as Allan, heels exchanged for sturdy men's shoes and his wig carefully stowed in a satchel. He nods to Bucky and they split ways.

The cops are waiting. They have a few already; Bucky recognizes their faces if not their names, and one man by his flamboyant paisley tie. It's too late for them; he's done his part, and now he has to get home before he's recognized or caught himself.

He runs. The police try to follow, but they're no match for angelic stamina and speed, and Bucky loses them in the warren of alleys and vacant tenements beneath the Manhattan Bridge. He stops outside a tired-looking automat, grimy and faded like the rest of the neighborhood. He shrugs and pushes his way in.

A bell rings overhead, and grimy, faded faces look up at him. Two he recognizes from the bar. Their expressions are drawn. They give him nods as he passes, and Bucky nods back.

He gets himself coffee and a sandwich. His funds are drawing tight, but he's keyed up, and caffeine will sober him. The food is bitter ashes in his mouth.

Steve is always going on about how things aren't fair, the way Negroes are treated, the way the married nurses have to fight tooth and nail to keep their jobs. He's never heard Steve raise his voice to all and sundry about the queers, but he knows Steve has to feel their injustice as keenly.

Bucky swallows past the lump in his throat, and for the first time in almost twenty years feels anger that doesn't arise to protect Steve.

Angels know love. _Bucky_ knows love, and it's a precious thing, even when it's agony. These men and women, they live under constraints an angel wouldn't suffer.

It's only once he steps back outside into the cool night air that he realizes his anger is strictly for himself. This is a personal anger, unbecoming of a sworn angel, and it should be impossible.

Bucky lights a cigarette and blows rings at the moon. He rides a giddy wave and smiles.

He crashes at Steve's. Mrs. Rogers is working the night shift and the lights are off inside, but Bucky kicks aside the brick hiding the spare key and lets himself in. He pulls off the couch cushions and and spreads them on the floor by Steve's bed.

"Missed you, Buck," Steve murmurs.

"Missed you, too, pal," he says back, as sleep rises up to claim him.

He wakes with a splitting headache, a taste like something foul died in his mouth, and the hard realization that he doesn't just love his friend, he is _in_ love with him. Steve doesn't ask any questions, just hands him a glass of water and couple of aspirin. Bucky chokes back the words that try to spill off his tongue.

"Going to church in a few," Steve says. "You gonna be here, when I get back?" There's something dark and trembling in Steve's heart, something that's not at all pleasant to brush against.

Bucky swallows around his guilt. "I'll be here."

"Good. Go put those couch cushions back, why don't you?"

Bucky frowns—Steve's never had a problem with Bucky leaving them by his bed before, or undressing where Bucky could see. He shrugs and puts them back on the couch, and nods to Steve when he slips out of his bedroom, wearing his Sunday suit with the neatly patched seams over the shoulders. Then he's gone, out the door to St. Joseph's early Mass, leaving Bucky with an empty apartment.

He scrubs his hand through his hair. He hopes it's not because he went on a bender. If it is... he shrugs. What is, is. Whatever the fallout may be, he'll face it. He touches his rosary and says an _Ave_ for strength.

Bucky doesn't go to church very often, anymore. The faint echoes of God that sustained him as a child are too faint for him, now. The little old ladies who knew him as a young boy shake their heads at him in the grocer's shop, and tell him they're praying for him. _Lapsed Catholic_ , their thoughts call him. _Probably his father's influence_. Bucky rolls his eyes and takes walks on his Sunday mornings instead.

He keeps his rosary, though. His mortal father gave it to him, and the prayers are still a comfort.

Steve, though, he likes church. He's a good Catholic boy. He doesn't have a rosary and he shirks off Confession when he can get away with it, but he _believes_. His is a simple, deep faith that nudges Bucky's blurry memories of devotion and rising incense.

Bucky makes breakfast as he waits. There's not much more than flour and a couple of eggs in the pantry, but it's enough for pancakes. He makes a whole stack of them, and a pot of coffee besides. He thinks of the night before, and he's still riding the edge of euphoria for getting away scott-free.

He resolves to tell Steve the truth as soon as he gets back from church.

Only life, it seems, has other plans. "Do you believe in angels, Buck?" Steve asks as soon as he steps in the door.

Bucky, nose-deep in his coffee cup, barely manages to avoid spitting all over his shirt. "Goddamn it, Steve!"

Steve hangs up his coat. "Not my fault you took it delicate." He picks up his sketchbook and pencil and sits down at the table.

"Jerk," Bucky tosses out, snatching a rag to clean up the mess.

"Fink. And you didn't answer my question." That shivery, discordant feeling is back, and Steve's spirit feels tamped down, as though he's shoving something under the bed.

Bucky shrugs, careful not to look at him. "I guess... If I can believe in a big ol' eye in the sky and the Resurrection I can believe in angels, too. Not the little fat babies, though," he says quickly. "Nah, like the Old Testament stuff. You know, 'with two they covered his feet, and with two they flew' and all that. Soldiers of God. The kind of thing that has to say, 'Be not afraid' any time a human sees 'em."

"You mean the kind of angel that has three heads, one of a lion, one of an ox, and one of a man? Something completely alien to anything we could understand?"

 _You wouldn't stop screaming when you saw me_. "Yeah, like that. Why?"

Steve shrugs, and this time it's his turn to avoid Bucky's gaze. "Had a weird dream, last night. And then, with church and all..."

"What'd you dream?"

"It was more impressions than anything specific."

Bucky makes a 'keep talking' gesture as he refills his mug.

Steve frowns, gaze turning inward. "I couldn't tell where I was. It wasn't dark, I just couldn't see. But I heard thunder. Or a heartbeat. Or—you know how when you scare a flock of pigeons into the air, and the sound of all their wings flapping? It sounded like that, but deeper, larger."

Ice slips down Bucky's spine. He sets his coffee down so he won't spill it a second time. "Go on."

"That's when it got strange," Steve says. He's fiddling with his sketchbook, his hand moving across the page almost without his volition. "I saw threads. I saw countless threads intertwined and woven together, splitting and uniting and falling away. It was too large to see all of it, but there was a pattern in the whole." Abstract lines and shapes form beneath his pencil, and Bucky's breath catches when he recognizes fragments of the Pattern.

"I saw a shadow falling with broken wings, hand outstretched. I saw blood dripping from steady hands. I saw two heads bowed together, but I couldn't tell where one body ended and the other began. I saw metal and electricity and an arm holding up a shield for others." Steve blinks, coming up from his trance. He stares down at the shapes on his sketchbook and shudders.

"I heard a woman screaming, and then a baby. Then I woke up."

Bucky restrains his trembling only by the greatest effort. "That's... a hell of a dream, Stevie."

Steve shuts his sketchbook. "Yeah." He glances to Bucky, then back to his hands. "Yeah." He swallows. "I—I think I dreamed of angels, Buck."

There is a moment of silence. Bucky's stomach roils. Had Steve somehow picked up on his dreams? Is he a Reader? It's possible; he re-Named an angel when he was seven years old. He shudders, then calms. No. Steve Rogers is no clairvoyant. He would have showed himself before now. Bucky lets out a relieved breath. Readers rarely survive past the age of thirty with their minds intact. Maybe he's just a Sensitive.

 _Maybe you're just too damn close to him_ , a nasty little voice whispers in his mind, and Bucky fights not to cringe. A Guardian doesn't fall in love with his charge. Even if he didn't force his dreams into Steve's head he needs to pull back before he gets too close to see clearly.

"Maybe you should lay off the milk before bed," he says, ruffling Steve's hair.

Steve bats his hand away with an irritated huff. "It's not the milk, Bucky."

"I don't know what to tell you, Steve. Weird dreams are weird dreams."

They drop it there, but Bucky sleeps on the couch rather than risk Steve's mind. He tucks his feelings back into the lockbox he'd held them in, and resolves to forget.

***

Bucky meets another angel in 1936. He's younger, his body maybe ten, but his eyes, weighted with the silent thunder of wings behind them, are ancient.

"Hey," Bucky says, dragging himself up from the fire escape to sit beside him on the rooftop.

"Hi." They sit in silence for a while, glancing curiously at each other. Bucky is nervous and eager. It's been so long since he spoke to a fellow angel.

"You got bruises on your knuckles," the angel says. He has a splash of freckles across his cheeks, and his dark gaze is piercing. "Why you always fightin' them boys?"

Bucky's lips curl up into a sharp smile. "If I don't, my charge will, and he won't win." The smile twists bitterly. The bullies only get bigger, their blows harder, and Steve never gives up.

The angel sits primly on the rooftop, his skinny legs dangling out over open air. Bucky had sensed his presence halfway across the city and tracked him here, to Queens. He isn't what he had expected. He suspects the feeling is mutual.

"You don't gotta fight his battles for him," the angel says.

"He wouldn't last a week if I didn't," Bucky replies. "He doesn't know how to back down from anyone." He struggles to rein back his defensiveness. It will serve him poorly, here.

He's starting to miss the uncontrolled, random conversations of humanity, already.

The little angel watches him. "You're Steve Rogers's angel, ain't you," he says. "I heard'a you, 'fore I left. My name's Baruchiel, too."

Bucky huffs a laugh. "Most common name in the Host. It's Bucky, now. My charge re-Named me."

"On purpose?"

"Nah, an accident. He... sees things clearer than most mortals. He was seven, didn't know any better."

The little angel whistles. "Guess that 'splains why you ain't much like how they talked about you."

"Yeah, guess so."

The little angel looks alarmed at his apathy. Silence falls between them once more.

The angel—Baruchiel—takes a breath as though to speak, then lets it out. He looks embarrassed. "Okay, this's been eatin' at me, and I gotta tell someone, but my momma'll think I've gone nuts if I tell her. You'll get it." He takes a deep breath. "Pooping is _weird_."

Bucky bursts out laughing. "It really, really is," he says through his giggles. "So undignified and yet so corporeally satisfying. I try not to think about it too hard."

Baruchiel purses his lips against a smile. Bucky clears his throat.

"You met your charge, yet?" he asks.

Baruchiel nods. "She's my kid sister." Something like pride colors his voice. "The Seeing said she'd do great works among men, helping to free 'em from oppression. Like Moses."

Bucky sees her in Baruchiel's mind, the chubby, dimpled limbs of a toddler, full of the fluid possibility of infancy before time deposits sediments and solidifies her into an adult. He looks away. "That's. That's a good one."

"What was yours?"

"I don't remember much of it."

Baruchiel gives a sharp _tsk_. "I can see you lyin'," he says. "Don't you pull that with me."

Pushy little bastard. Bucky hisses in frustration. "It wasn't very coherent, okay? And what got through was kinda... Disturbing. Pain. Sorrow. Triumph, but not without its pound of flesh."

He glances at his companion. He looks like nothing more than a raggedy little black kid, all dirty face and knobby knees—until you meet his gaze, and the fires of Heaven stare back. "That's hard," Baruchiel says, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah."

They sit a little longer, _thrumming_ together for old time's sake while watching the sun set over the tops of the tenements. Baruchiel's voice, when he speaks, is soft and wistful. "You ever miss the sound of the Host?"

Bucky swallows past the feeling in his chest. "Sometimes. I barely remember it."

Baruchiel shudders.

Bucky feels a solidarity with this tiny angel, his brother-in-arms. "You get used to it. Humanity's not the same, but it'll help you forget, if you let it."

Piercing eyes meet his once more. "We ain't here to forget. We're here to protect."

Bucky looks back over the rooftops. "Yeah."

He leaves shortly after, walking his compatriot back to his crowded basement apartment. At least two other families are crammed inside, and Baruchiel's mother gives Bucky a hard, suspicious look before shutting the door in his face with a polite, "Thank you kindly, sir." Bucky reflects that, all things considered, he has it fairly easy.

It's a long train ride back to Brooklyn.

***

Steve gets into Brooklyn College on scholarship. His art teachers give him a glowing recommendation, and he impresses the interviewers so much that, after seeing his portfolio and hearing of his financial difficulties, they advocate as much financial aid as the school can manage. It's not everything, but a good two-thirds of his tuition is paid for, and Steve's whole body lightens in a way it never does, weighed as he is by sickness and worry.

His mother and Bucky are overjoyed. They've watched Steve cannibalize whatever paper he can get his hands on, from newspapers to receipts, to, on one memorable occasion, his own walls. If it had been up to Steve he would have passed on school to help his mother, who's getting older and more frail as the years go by, but Mrs. Rogers won't hear of it, and Bucky sits him down to give him a stern talking-to.

"You're an idiot, Rogers, if you don't grab this with both hands," he says. They're sitting on the front stoop, basking in the light of the afternoon sun. Bucky's got a cigarette dangling from his fingers, but Steve doesn't smoke, not even asthma cigarettes, which he gave up years ago once they figured out they only made his heart pound worse. He's got a happy little smile on his face, and Bucky feels lighter just looking at it.

"You think so, huh?"

Bucky takes a drag. "I know so."

Steve leans back against the steps. "You ever think about going to college, Buck?"

Bucky snorts. "Not even a chance. My place is here, with you."

Steve looks stricken. "Bucky, no," he says. "Don't saddle yourself with me. You got good grades, you could do anything."

Bucky bites his lip. _I was destined to be saddled with you the moment I was born_ , he thinks, _and I haven't regretted a single moment of it_. But he doesn't say so out loud. Instead, he says, "Don't worry about me, Stevie. I'm doing fine. Watching you succeed, that's all I need."

Steve is still frowning, so Bucky bumps his shoulder with his own. "Hey. This is your day. You got into school on account of your artistic genius, we need to celebrate. What say I take you out dancing, and tomorrow we go down to Coney Island and ride the 'coasters 'til we throw up?"

Steve smiles despite himself. "Only you could make that sound like fun."

"That's 'cause you don't got any imagination."

"I've got plenty of imagination, yours is just warped."

"Says you."

"Says everyone."

"Go boil your head, Rogers."

"Make me."

***

That October, Sarah Rogers collapses at work. She's always had a cough, and Bucky's seen the blood on her handkerchiefs for months now. He knows she will die. She puts on a brave face for Steve, but he already suspects. When the diagnosis comes in, it's Bucky that holds Steve up when he falls apart, and Bucky that finagles his way into the sanitarium to sit by her bedside.

They talk, in those long, cold days of her decline. Sarah is desperately afraid for her son, and Bucky swears to God and on his sisters' heads that he'll look after him, come Hell or high water. She smiles gently. "I've seen a lot of death, Bucky," she says. "I've seen enough to know what's important in life. And love is one of them. I know you love my son in ways the church and the law don't keep to."

Bucky's not sure what his face looks like in that instant, but Mrs. Rogers starts laughing. She laughs until it turns to coughing, and she doesn't stop until tears stream down her face. Bucky steadies her through it, sick to his stomach, and gets her a glass of water when she settles. She sighs. "I've read the Bible, James Barnes, and I know you have, too. There isn't a thing in there about two men lying together that isn't balanced out by a hundred other laws everyone ignores. Everyone says different, but I don't think God cares. Love looks the same, no matter who's loving."

He looks down at his lap, ashamed of himself and hating that he is. He's an angel of the Most High. He should be above this, but he's not, and his voice is thick with unshed tears when he speaks. "I love him more than anything I can name, Mrs. Rogers," he says. "He's the best thing in my life."

She pats his hands where they sit knotted in his lap. "That's what comforts me," she says. "Steve needs that. He forgets himself, but you keep him grounded."

Bucky swallows, and can't say anything more. He touches the rosary in his pocket, but for the first time it feels like nothing more than simple wooden beads.

***

Steve takes after his mother in a strong way. They have the same delicacy of feature, the same paleness of skin. They both have the same bad lungs. Bucky sits beside Sarah Rogers and watches her lose the fight, and he has nightmares of Steve in her place, coughing up blood and lung tissue and wasting away into nothing.

A picture of Joseph Rogers sits beside her bed. It was taken just before he shipped out to the war, and he is wearing his uniform and smiling Steve's bright grin. He is tall and handsome, and broad as a house. More than once Bucky finds himself wishing Steve had taken after his father.

But he takes after his mother, and the tuberculosis eats her lungs all through the fall and in winter of '38 until she's no more than a shadow. Sarah Rogers dies on January 3rd, and Steve crumples beneath his grief.

***

They bury her beside her husband. Bucky stands beside Steve at the funeral, all the Barneses do, lined up after Bucky and wearing their Sunday best. "Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine," the priest intones. "Et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen." Steve is a narrow shadow by her grave, and threatens to tremble right out of his skin. His misery is sharp against Bucky's soul.

Bucky walks him home, tries to convince him to stay with them for a while, but Steve shakes his head. They both know Bucky's apartment is too full as it is; they don't really have the space for him, too. He insists on staying by himself in his mother's apartment, stubbornly clinging to the last fragments of her and working himself to the bone to afford it. Bucky watches in silence as the stress takes its toll, and stops watching when a cough settles in Steve's lungs that refuses to budge.

"I'm moving in, you twerp, and you can't stop me," he says one day, hefting his suitcase and pushing past Steve into the rooms beyond. "I'm not letting you kill yourself just to prove a point."

It says a lot about how sick Steve is that he lets the issue slide. He sighs, his breath rattling in his chest, and shuts the door. Bucky stands in the living room, clutching his suitcase and feeling foolish. His plans had gotten him this far, but gone no farther. He looks at Steve, hoping for some indication of his thoughts, but Steve's heart and mind are a jumbled mess, clouded by grief and illness. Steve sighs again. "Thanks, Bucky."

"Not a problem, Steve," Bucky says gently. Then, with new confidence, "I call dibs on the couch."

"Wha—no, you can't sleep on the couch!"

"Why not?" Bucky shrugs a shoulder, setting down his suitcase by the sagging couch in question. "You're still in your room, aren't you," he says. "And it's too soon to be sleeping in your ma's room. It'd be weird."

The soft exhalation behind him is pained. "God, Buck..."

Bucky has turned before he's even aware of it, pulling Steve into a crushing hug. Steve's arms shake as they come up around him, and his breaths are shallow against his shoulder. "I miss her, Bucky."

Bucky's heart aches. "So also you now indeed have sorrow," he says, "but you will see her again, and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you."

Steve's grip tightens, and his presses his forehead harder against Bucky's collarbone. Bucky can feel the wetness seeping through his shirt. "I don't think that's how it goes."

"S'close enough. Don't think Jesus would mind, anyway."

Steve laughs wetly, and pulls away. He averts his face so Bucky won't see his tears, but the memory of his body lingers against Bucky's skin, and Bucky feels all that he does. His stomach drops. "Steve, please. _Let me help_."

"Yeah. Yeah, Buck."

"Then get your scrawny ass back in bed. You'll make yourself sicker, being up and about."

Steve does as he's told, and Bucky goes to the kitchen to scrape together soup with the dust and cobwebs in Steve's cupboards.

***

"C'mon, Steve, don't do this to me," Bucky says, running his fingers over Steve's burning forehead. "Not again. Please, not again." His heart clenches painfully in his chest.

It's not tuberculosis, but it's almost as bad: a cold that segues into influenza, with pneumonia following on its heels. His fever spiked three days ago and refused to come back down. Bucky lined the couch cushions on the floor by Steve's bed, but he doesn't bother sleeping anymore, caught listening to Steve's haggard breaths and counting the seconds between exhale and inhale.

Two days ago Bucky ran to the building next door, the only one on the block that had a telephone, and called Steve's boss. "It's the 'flu," he said, his stomach churning. He returned to Steve's bedside short Steve's job. He never bothered calling his own boss. Instead, he spent the interminable days forcing water down Steve's throat and praying his rosary.

It's not enough. The fever skyrockets, and Bucky finds himself blessing Steve's stubbornness. They'll probably be evicted, but for now they have a private bathroom. He dumps the ice from the ice chest into the narrow, cast-iron bathtub, breaking it up with a hammer, and runs the coldest bath he can. He scoops Steve up from the sweaty sheets and slips him into the water. Steve starts shivering almost immediately.

Bucky clamps Steve's nose with his fingers and lowers him until his head is submerged. Steve's body is flushed; he's moved past deliriousness into a near comatose state, unmoving but for his labored breathing, and Bucky is sick with fear. He pours cupped handfuls of water over his skin until his fingers cramp from the cold.

They are poor, far too poor to afford the medicine Steve needs, let alone a doctor's fee. Bucky has done everything he can, but the rent for the apartment demands most of his pay, and Steve's savings are earmarked for tuition. The ice bath should be lowering Steve's fever, but his body refuses to cool. Bucky examines his options. They're narrowing down to zero.

Is this it? Is he to defend Steve Rogers only to be forced to watch a simple virus ravage him? He is supposed to change the _world_ , Bucky knows it. Steve has a fire in his weak, human heart to make angels small in comparison, and _this_ is his fate?

Bucky runs a shaking hand over Steve's hair, black despair creeping through him. "I was Your tool to protect him, and now I have to watch him die? For _what!_ "

The final word cracks in the close air of the bathroom. Steve moans, a weak croak of noise, and every muscle in Bucky's (impotent, useless) body seizes.

"Steve?"

Steve's eyes flutter, then fall closed. Bucky can't restrain the strangled cry that tears from his throat. "No, c'mon Stevie, you can do this, just—c'mon, _please_ —"

The water is melting to lukewarm when Bucky plunges his hands in to scoop Steve into his arms. His shirt soaks through, and the edge of the tub digs into his stomach, but Steve's skin burns against his like holy fire, and Bucky presses his forehead into Steve's shoulder.

"'O Lord the God of my salvation: I have cried in the day, and in the night before thee. Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear to my cry!' Steve, come back to me— _it was not supposed to happen this way!_ "

Deep, aching rage settles over him, and it grows until it is too large to be contained within his mortal shell. He cries out; it is agony. He pushes the rage higher. It is akin to the steadiness of the angelic wrath that has been so long denied him. He draws it into himself, and it alights in the recesses of his spirit to free those fragments of himself that have been trapped since his birth. In a rush of wind he sees, as with a thousand eyes, and he feels, as upon a thousand feathered wings, the electricity of his power in the air. His shadow upon the wall swells until the outlines of wings form in the water vapor rising from the bath.

"You cannot have him, Azriel," he says, and there is a harmonic in his voice he has not heard in years. "I will not allow it." The sweet song of his true form calls to him, but Steve is hot in his arms, and he cannot abandon his charge for anything.

Bucky is not a student of Raphael, nor as great a warrior as those of Michael's legions. He is a lesser angel of Gabriel's corps, a faint breath of Holy Power next to the hurricane of the Archangels, but his charge is dying, and he is wrathful.

He sweeps his hand over Steve's brow and banishes the virus from his blood. He presses his fingers against Steve's chest and dries away the putrescent fluid drowning him from the inside out. He covers Steve's nose and mouth and lowers him beneath the water, made holy by his will, and by the Grace of God seals his body against the fever. The release of his impending death from the air is a flash of rain in the desert, and Bucky finds his mortal shell weeping in relief. He steadies his grip on his charge and stands, lifting him from the tub.

Steve weighs no more than a puff of cotton in his arms, no more than eiderdown. Bucky can feel his rage cooling, his shadow shrinking back to cover his body, and he barely has the strength to tuck Steve into his bed before his body fails him. His knees crack against the floorboards. He wraps his hand around Steve's wrist; his pulse is steady beneath his fingers. Bucky lowers his head to the mattress and lets his exhausted tears soak into the worn sheets.

"Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam, hagomel lahayavim tovot, sheg'molani kol tov." His voice is cracked and ragged.

When he wakes the next morning, he's slumped upright against the bed. Deep within him there is a place, secret and small, that was the source of his strength; he presses against it now, and it disintegrates at his touch like a fire-scorched branch. He blazed against the darkness, but now he is spent: his memories of the Host are fading, and his recollection of the night before grows hazy. His limbs tremble with exhaustion. He is cold.

But Steve is alive, his breathing easy as he sleeps. Bucky bows his head. It is a good trade.

***

They're evicted a week later, on account of the rent. Steve shrugs, and hides the bitter twist of his lips as he packs up his belongings. Bucky keeps silent as well. His voice hasn't recovered yet, from speaking as himself.

They find a new place. Bucky sticks by Steve's side despite Steve's insistence he go his own way, and with their meager savings puts down a deposit on a cramped cold-water flat in DUMBO. It's a two-room closet, but they manage to wedge a pair of beds along the walls of the main room and a rickety little table in the kitchen. They set their watches to the rattling of the streetcars overhead, and debate getting a cat to catch the roaches.

The day after they move in, when Steve goes out looking for a new job, Bucky sets up an artist's studio in the space before the window. He lines the windowsill with jars of paintbrushes and pencils, and unfolds Steve's old easel to stand in the corner. His sketchbooks he stacks in tidy rows along the floor. It's little enough, but when Steve comes home that afternoon his eyes get misty, and the look he gives Bucky is—Bucky looks at the floor, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"You keep with the art school," he says gruffly. "Don't you dare stop drawing, you got it?"

Steve nods, wordless. He draws Bucky that night, catching him lounging at the dinner table with a cigarette in hand and his shirt half-open, his hair mussed from where he ran his fingers through it in absent frustration when dinner burned.

Bucky loves Steve's drawings. He loves how often _he_ shows up in Steve's drawings. He prods him out to the kitchen window to practice perspective on the fire escape, and asks the neighbors if they want their portraits done. On slow days, when they've nothing better to do, he finds himself posing for endless sketches, and lets the sullen summer heat drag his eyelids down while he basks beneath Steve's attention. "Get your hand down," Steve says. "Stop fidgeting, for God's sake, you're a terrible model." He draws with his tongue caught between his teeth, and Bucky lets himself stare at his lips, imagining nipping them red and tasting his indrawn breath.

They're idle fantasies. Bucky doesn't let himself dwell on them overmuch.

He does, however, apply to be a model at the local art colleges, and hires out his services to various artists. He's nervous, at first, bashful of baring himself so casually to strangers, but practice and acclimation draw out his natural charm, and soon taking off his clothes in a studio is as easy as taking off his coat at home. He's beloved in the anatomy classes for his musculature, and he gains an appreciation for his mortal flesh he hasn't felt since he was twelve and discovering his body's responses.

He eventually gets a job hauling appliances into people's houses. Refrigerators are the new big thing, and with the economy in the upswing they and radios are leaving the sales floor faster than his boss can keep them in stock. Bucky doesn't mind the work, and it pays better than hauling produce. He keeps modeling, though.

August rolls by into September, and war breaks out in Europe. The press have a field day, and Steve's eyes set in anger over the morning newspaper. He is speechless for a whole hour, during which Bucky reads all the articles he can get his hands on, even going so far as to buy a copy of the New York Times from the newsstand down the street.

Germany has invaded Poland, and alliances are pulling tight to attention.

Steve is still silent, pacing in their living room when he finishes reading, and Bucky braces himself for the tirade.

It doesn't disappoint. Steve's never liked bullies, and if Germany has proved anything with this attack, it's that they're bullies. Bucky lets him blow off steam before coaxing him back to his breakfast, then shoves him out the door to his classes.

He gives the papers one last look before he, too, leaves for the day, an unpleasant burst of prescience coming over him. This... will not end well. For anyone in Europe, but not for the U.S. either, or for Steve and Bucky in particular. He thinks back to his Seeing.

No, it will not end well at all.

That afternoon he's modeling at BC, and his heart stutters when he walks into the classroom and sees Steve among the students, perched up on a stool with a pencil tucked behind his ear. It's not the first time Bucky's worked at Brooklyn College—he's a legend in the sculpture department—and really, it's a miracle he hasn't run across Steve before now. Steve's eyes widen when he sees Bucky, and a blush creeps across his cheeks, and Bucky does his damndest not to look at him as he talks with the instructor.

"We're doing portraits today, so it'll be a lot of stationary work, but I'd like a series of ten one-minute sketches, seven three-minute sketches, and four five-minute sketches to warm them up," he says. "Then we'll get to the long and boring part. Three half-hour poses, preferably ones that work their foreshortening."

"No problem," Bucky says, unbuttoning his shirt and folding it on the table by the door. He knows more than a few of the other artists, has modeled for some, even slept with a couple. This is the first time he's modeled for Steve in an official capacity, however, let alone nude, and his skin prickles with awareness. He feels like he did when he just started out, hyper-aware of his body and the eyes watching it.

He breezes through the sketches, holding himself exactly still no matter where he lands in his range of motion, and blanks his mind. _Nerves are pointless_ , he thinks. _It's just Steve_.

He knows from Steve's face, however, they'll be talking tonight whether he wants to or not. A flare of anger ripples through him, and his next three stances are more aggressive. He has no reason to be ashamed, not one. This is legitimate work, and he's glad to have it, even if the economy is picking up. Steve said it first: it's an art class, not a cat house. He's not doing anything immoral, though he supposes the old church ladies would say differently. He raises his chin and stares Steve down, and Steve's cheeks flush even redder.

For the first proper sitting he ends up sprawled in an armchair, his limbs thrown out haphazardly. He stares out the window and lets his face settle into a contemplative mask. The room is silent but for the wet sounds of the paint, and the shush of bristles against canvas. He sinks into the demands of keeping still for a half-hour.

The teacher comes up and thanks him after the class, handing him an envelope with his fee, and from the corner of his eye he catches the frown creasing Steve's slender face.

He spends the rest of his day as he usually does, listening in on the jazz groups around town practice before their evening gigs. He doesn't need to keep modeling, not anymore, but it keeps him in life's little luxuries. That, and he _likes_ it. It's nice, being the center of attention. He finishes his beer and trudges home.

Steve is waiting for him, beans on the stove and a full bowl before him. He looks conflicted, and Bucky, frustrated and nervous, is in no mood to cooperate.

"So you're modeling now," Steve says.

"It pays," is all Bucky says in reply. He spoons out a bowl and settles down to eating.

"Don't you haul appliances for Sandino's?"

Bucky shrugs. "Took a while to find that job. I modeled to make ends meet, didn't bother dropping it after."

"Buck, I didn't know." Steve looks stricken. It makes Bucky angry and he doesn't know why, and that makes him angrier.

"No," he says, slamming his spoon down on the table. "You don't get to feel guilty about this. It's a job, I found it, and it paid for all the beans in that pot. You said it yourself, Steve, it's good work. I won't be ashamed of it."

Steve's eyes are wide. "I-I didn't say it wasn't—"

"Well, you sure were angry enough during your class today. If it wasn't because you don't like me whoring myself out, what was it?"

That's the thing about Steve Rogers: you can throw him off guard with a swift attack, but once he's backed against a wall, once the gauntlet's thrown down, he tucks his chin and fights back. "I didn't say that, Bucky, and you know it. I was surprised, alright? I wasn't expecting it." His eyes soften. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Bucky shrugs one shoulder, suddenly embarrassed at his outburst. "Wasn't any of your business."

"That's a load of bushwa," Steve snaps. "I'm an artist, Bucky. It _is_ my business. I could have introduced you to a slew of artists looking for models and who were willing to pay."

Bucky stutters to a stop, flushing. "I guess I didn't think of that."

"That's because you're the stupid one. I'm the smart one." Steve's thin smile takes the bite away.

Bucky snorts. "Guess so."

They apply themselves to their dinner. After a while, Steve says, too casually, "You gonna keep modeling?"

Bucky shrugs. "Thought I might. It's good enough pay. Not exactly a hardship."

Steve coughs, flushing, and he can't quite meet Bucky's gaze. "D'you... would you be okay with modeling for me? Professionally, I mean."

His food suddenly feels like lead in his throat, and Bucky has to swallow hard just to get it down. "Now?" He's not proud of how his voice squeaks.

Steve rolls his eyes. "No, not now, we're eating, and if I have to look at another blank page today I might throw the towel in and call it quits. But." He clears his throat and glances up at Bucky through his eyelashes. "But, um. Whenever you're free."

Bucky puts himself in his negotiating frame of mind, if only to preserve his dignity. _I'm yours whenever, wherever and however you want me_ somehow doesn't seem professional. "I'm free tomorrow. Got some stuff in the evening, but during the day..."

Steve swallows. "Yeah. Tomorrow's good."

Bucky curses their tiny apartment, that night. All he's aware of is Steve's breathing almost within arm's reach, and the creak of Steve's mattress as he shifts.

He doesn't sleep at all.

***

Bucky looks like a wreck the next morning. He tries to apologize—what kind of model comes to a gig looking like he just came off a drunk?—but Steve just _looks_ at him, his eyes going razor-focused, and waves Bucky's worries aside.

"No," he says abstractedly. "No, it's fine. I can use it."

He sets up his paints as Bucky strips off his clothes. Bucky's blood is rushing through his ears, his pulse pounding in his joints. "What sort of poses were you thinking?" he asks, and he flushes at the husk in voice.

Every artist has their own way of directing their models. Some tell him to keep moving until they find something they like; some tell him a position and tweak from there. Steve looks beyond him, his gaze distant. "You're sitting," he says. "You're tired. You have regrets that are weighing you down." Bucky blinks, then looks around him. He pulls up the spindly chair in the corner and moves it to the window, into the well of morning sunlight, and sits. He hears the scritch of Steve's charcoal sketching him as he moves.

Bucky is accounted an excellent model, to those who utilize his services. He always manages to capture precisely what the artist envisions. It makes Bucky smirk whenever he hears it. It's unbecoming pride, but he can't help it; it's easy to be perfect when you can see into your client's heart.

What he sees in Steve's heart takes his breath. Gooseflesh rises over his skin, and he arranges his limbs.

"Yeah, just like that," Steve murmurs, and starts sketching in earnest.

Bucky has just started to release the tension in his muscles when a thought comes to him. "Wait, wait," he says, getting up. "Sorry, I'll be right back." He goes over to his pants and searches through the pockets, coming up with his battered pack of cigarettes. He takes one out without lighting it, and goes back to his seat. he holds it between his fingers, angles his body around it as though it's his sole comfort, like he needs these early-morning moments of peace and nicotine to keep his sanity.

Steve nods. "That's... perfect, actually." He takes away the drawing pad and puts up the canvas in its place.

Minutes pass. Bucky's skin warms from the sunlight, and his muscles cry to move. Itches spring up all over his body, two more flaring for each one he doesn't scratch, and he fights the urge to jiggle his knee.

Bucky is a creature of motion, and has been for as long as he can remember. His mother says he was a restless baby, always bouncing in the womb and crawling out of his crib as soon as he could. As an adult he's constantly shifting and fidgeting; sometimes it feels as though he has to keep moving just to keep from focusing on the narrow reach of his limbs.

Modeling is the antithesis of his natural state. it was torturous at first, when it was just Steve, but as he met more artists and got better at the trade it became almost soothing. It focuses him, now. Settles him. He comes away feeling lighter. It's the perfect combination of mindfulness and service that placates the angel in him.

A solid two hours pass before Steve rouses from his work. "Sun's moved too much," he says, and lays down the brush. He shrugs out his shoulders. "You never used to be able to sit so still."

Bucky raises his arms over his head, elbows popping. "Learned a few things, here and there."

Steve snorts. "Remember when you broke your leg?"

"Yeah, thought I was gonna go crazy." He cracks his neck and stands. "So how's it look?"

Steve stutters, staring at Bucky's naked chest. "It's too early to tell, really—"

Bucky rolls his eyes and comes up beside him to see what he's done. Steve's not being modest, it _is_ too early to tell what the final outcome will look like, but Bucky sees with more than his eyes, and sometimes he sees more than just the present.

"Oh," he says. He sees himself sitting beside a rumpled bed, worn thin by time and woe, the red-rimmed sleeplessness of his eyes telling a story of long nights and exhaustion. His arms curl about himself protectively, his face angled away from the sunlight that bathes the rest of him. He looks vulnerable in a way that has nothing to do with his nakedness. The love bite from three nights ago, in life faded to near-decency, is highlighted on his neck. Bucky shivers in embarrassment and surprise. "It's gonna be beautiful," he says awkwardly.

Steve's ears turn pink. "You can't know that yet," he says. "So don't say it if you're just making nice." He turns the easel away and tends to his brushes.

***

They finish the painting in three more sittings. Steve spends another week or so putting on the finishing touches, but he doesn't need Bucky for that. He keeps it covered when he's not working on it, and Bucky sneaks looks when he's not around. He stares at it for ages as it dries, and tries not to think that the image of him as a broken-down whore is a little closer to his reality than he'd like to admit. He wonders if it doesn't speak to some part of Steve's mind, as well.

Steve eventually takes the canvas off the frame and rolls it away. He doesn't add it to his portfolio, and neither of them speak of it again.

Bucky watches his charge for a time, after that. He captured something of Bucky's essence in his paints, and it feels like prophecy.

***

Steve plugs on through school, coming home with ink, paint and chalk-stained fingers and saying funny words like _chiaroscuro_ and babbling about negative space. Bucky nods in the right places and shoves food in his hands when he's too tired to hold up his head.

The war in Europe spreads, Germany rolling through country after country, shredding treaty after treaty, and Steve reads through every article the papers print. 

"D'you ever think of heading up to Canada and joining the RAF?" he asks one day.

Bucky flips over the sausages he bought with his bonus. "Can't say as I have. There's guys doing that?" He hears the paper crinkle as Steve turns a page.

"Some. Passing themselves off as Canadians so the government won't extradite 'em back home."

"Huh."

"Looks like Roosevelt's easing the stance on it, though..."

Bucky keeps silent and waits for the bomb to drop.

"I want to do it," he says. "We should do it."

"You just got over your second bout of pneumonia this year," Bucky replies. "Don't think you should be going anywhere near a front line."

Steve, of course, shrugs this off as inconsequential. "Doesn't matter. This war is wrong. It needs to end."

"And you think you're the one to end it?"

Steve raises his chin and squares his shoulders. Bucky doesn't even need to look at him to know it's happening. "I think I can help."

The sausages are nearly done. Bucky's mouth is watering at the smell of them. "Stick with the art thing for now, 'kay? The U.S.'ll join sooner or later, we've got too many allies over there getting beat up. No use getting ahead of ourselves."

"It's a war, Bucky," Steve says as Bucky plops a sausage down in front of him. "It's the definition of people getting ahead of themselves."

Bucky cuts into his own, and his eyes nearly roll back in his skull at the taste. "God," he groans. "When I get famous I'm gonna eat like this every day."

Steve seems to let the matter drop. "Famous, huh."

"Yeah. M'gonna be a movie star like Robert Taylor, and I'll be so rich I'll eat sausages every day."

"You let me know how that works out for you."

"Abso-fuckin'-lutely."

Steve _doesn't_ let the matter drop, but he lets it go quiet—only to bring it up at odd moments when Bucky isn't paying attention. Bucky shudders at the thought of Steve going into battle. Bucky knows war; he knows Steve will die if he enlists. There is no guesswork; Steve will _die_ , and Bucky won't let that happen. He evades Steve's prodding as best as he can.

Little else changes. They save up to go to ball games, and bet on the Dodgers' odds for winning the pennant. Steve goes to school and works for the WPA, making tuition by painting theater playbills and little murals in public buildings. He applies for a grant to paint a mural on the wall of the old factory, but no one's gotten back to him yet. He keeps sending letters, and occasionally Bucky sees him sketching ideas for what he'd like to do.

Bucky hauls radios into people's houses, and sends as much money as he can spare to his mother. Rebecca is _sixteen_ already, and Bucky starts worrying about the boys he sees lingering on the stoop of their building. He scowls at them as he walks in, and Steve snickers at him behind his back.

"Shut up, Steve," he says.

"I didn't say a damn thing."

"You're _not saying_ it real damn loud, so cut it out."

"I'd say something about reaping what you sow, or just desserts, but I'm still working on the punchline."

Bucky scowls at the streaky walls as they climb the creaky stairs. "I know what sixteen-year-old boys think, Steve. That's not happening to _my_ baby sister."

"You gonna tell her that yourself, or were you gonna let her figure it out on her own?"

"Shut _up_ , for Chrissakes."

Neither of them say anything about how painfully obvious Rebecca's crush on Steve is. Bucky—he doesn't know what to think, really. In the parts of his mind where he lets himself think about their dubious future, he supposes they'll both get married, settle down. It'd be easier to keep close to Steve if he married his sister, but a dark, snarling part of himself that Bucky keeps very carefully ignored _hates_ the idea of Steve with anyone but himself.

And Steve—

Steve never changes.

"Jesus." 

"It looks worse than it is."

"It looks bad."

Steve is sitting on his bed, head tilted forward and his handkerchief pressed up against his bloody nose. He's watching Bucky from the corner of his eye, a faintly sheepish look on his face but a stubborn cant to his shoulders. Bucky sighs.

"It was Frankie McRae, again, wasn't it."

Steve's face answers for him.

Bucky runs his hand over his face. "Just, you don't have to push him, you know that? Can you do that for me, Steve? Just leave him be?"

"I can't sit back and watch, Bucky, you know I can't."

He knows. Frankie McRae was a turd as a child and age has done nothing to improve him. He's a jackass and a mean drunk, and it isn't right, what he does to his girl—but he has almost a hundred pounds on Steve, and most of that is in his arms and shoulders. Steve is lucky he doesn't have a concussion. "Alright, you know how this goes. Strip."

"Aw, Buck..."

"No. You look like the south end of a northbound horse. You need this."

Steve grimaces. "C'mon, I'll heal in a few days, I don't need to waste it."

The smell of camphor and menthol fills the room as Bucky cracks the lid. "You're black and blue, Steve, and you have work tomorrow. We got it to use it, not to save. Take off your shirt."

Steve won't look at him as he unbuttons his shirt. He hesitates before pulling it away from his chest, and the small wince he gives sends Bucky's heart dropping to his stomach.

It's not much of a chest to write home about. Pale skin stretched over protruding ribs, and two sick lungs inside. But now, that pale skin is mottled with bruises, and those ribs are clearly aching. It's not much of a chest, but it's _Bucky's_ , and he's furious at Steve that he's so careless with himself. He puts his hands on Steve's skin.

"Lemme know if it hurts like broken anywhere, okay?"

"Don't think so. Just bruises."

"Uh-huh. We're checkin' anyway."

Bucky hesitates, then grits his teeth. He's held off from using his power actively since _that_ night, the night he snatched Steve from death and scorched himself in the process. His control is shaky in ways it never was before, but Bucky's job is to keep his charge safe, and that means making sure he's in one piece. He swallows back his apprehension and sweeps his senses down through Steve's body.

He stifles his sigh of relief. Nothing is broken. He goes through the motions of checking, all the same. He runs his fingers over Steve's ribs, smoothing in liniment as he goes, and the warm, goosepimpled heat of Steve's skin sends fires racing through Bucky's veins. Human urges push up inside him: he _wants_. He wants to wrap Steve in his arms, to guard him in the most primal way his body knows. He wants to press his lips to his skin, to breathe in his scent; he wants to look in Steve's eyes and see the same desires.

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut.

"Will I live, Doc?"

Bucky chokes out a laugh, smirking to hide his fear and longing. "You're a hopeless case, Rogers." He throws his shirt at him. "Go on, get dressed. There's nothing more this doc can do for you."

That night, his eyes trace the narrow span of Steve's shoulders, outlined against the light through their threadbare curtains. _You are an angel of the Most High_ , he tells himself. _Your duty is all your being_. He turns to face the wall.

It grows harder and harder to care.


	3. Chapter 3

War comes to the U.S. in December.

Bucky's modeling for Steve's class again. The instructor likes him; something about dynamic poses. Bucky shrugs. It's a clothes-on session, for which he's grateful; it's cold outside, and the large windows of the classroom do a piss-poor job of keeping out the winter wind.

They're working with charcoal, today. Bucky's picked up a thing or two about art from all his exposure, and he imagines, just to keep himself from going out of his mind with boredom, how he'd draw it.

Thick sweeps to outline the significant curves: the shoulders, the drape of his trousers, the strong line of his arm. Enough to convey the idea of motion in elemental terms. Thick smudging to play off the shadows cast by the afternoon light. Smaller, spare lines to hint at the face; fill in the rest with—

"The Japs just blew up Pearl Harbor!" A student bursts into the classroom waving a newspaper. "Turn on the radio!"

Bucky breaks pose as the class erupts into chatter. The teacher twiddles with the dial, and Bucky comes up to stand by Steve as the frantic voice of the newscaster fills the air.

"—witnessed this morning the attack of Pearl Harbor and a severe bombing of Pearl Harbor by army planes, undoubtedly Japanese. The city of Honolulu has also been attacked and considerable damage done. This battle has been going on for nearly three hours. One of the bombers dropped within fifty feet of KTU tower. It is no joke. It is a real war."

Steve looks to Bucky. "I'm going to enlist," he says.

Bucky says nothing, but he's suddenly, desperately glad that Steve has asthma and a weak heart. He feels traitorous and low just thinking it.

He goes with Steve to the recruiting station and waits for him across the street, smoking cigarette after cigarette until the pavement around him is littered with butts. He waits for two hours, and when Steve comes out, shoulders slumped and hands in his pockets, he lets go a shaky sigh of relief. Steve shows him his card. "4F" is stamped across it, bold and beautiful as the sun in the sky, and Bucky lets his heart unclench. He stubs out his cigarette and throws his arm around Steve's (blessedly) skinny shoulders. "C'mon, let's go home."

"It's not fair," Steve says, and from anyone else it would sound whiny, but from Steve it's a summation of fault on the part of the recruiters. "I can fight, I _want_ to fight. It'll be keeping another man from being drafted."

"Them's the breaks," Bucky says. He has to fight to keep his happiness out of his voice.

Months pass, and Steve remains glued to the newspapers. One by one his classmates disappear, some going to the front, others to the government and even more to the booming factories. Bucky gives up the modeling gig and gets a second job at the shipyards, pounding rivets for the fleet of Navy ships under construction. Production's been up ever since France surrendered, but Pearl Harbor sent demand soaring. Superstructure crossbeams spring up in thickets all along Wallabout Bay.

Steve graduates and takes a job painting propaganda posters. It's good-paying work, but frustration darkens his cheerfulness, and Bucky is unpleasantly reminded of puberty.

The other shoe drops one day in mid-February, when Bucky is taking out the trash. He frowns at the enlistment card half-buried beneath the coffee grounds. He pulls it out. At first he thinks it's Steve's old card, but the date on it is yesterday's, and Steve's neat script proclaims his hometown as New Haven.

"What the hell is this?" Bucky demands, shoving the crumpled, gravy-stained card under Steve's nose when he gets home that night. They don't actually see much of each other anymore, what with Bucky's two jobs and the odd hours Steve seems to keep, but Bucky called in to his night shift saying he'd be late. He's been waiting.

Steve meets his gaze squarely. "Dunno, Bucky, it looks a lot like an enlistment card, don't you think?"

"I know what it is, dumbass, I want to know why you filled out another one!"

"You know why," Steve says. "You _know_ why."

"Obviously I don't, because this ain't makin' sense. Explain it using small words, why don't you!"

Steve squares his jaw. Bucky sighs and gives up the argument. Steve is like a mule at times; when he sits himself down, there's no getting him to move. "I gotta go," he mutters, grabbing his jacket. "There's stew on the stove if you're hungry."

He leaves Steve in their apartment, and he wishes to God things were different.

***

Bucky shreds one more of Steve's falsified enlistment cards before he gets a letter of his own in the mail. It's a plain envelope, with SELECTIVE SERVICE stamped over the return address. He accidentally crumples it when he vomits in the sink.

He applies for conscientious objector status, but he can't exactly put that he's a guardian angel on the paperwork, and the bureaucrats don't care to hear that a perfectly fit, sound man is unwilling to serve his country. They give him a choice: he can serve fully in the branch of his choosing, he can serve in a non-combatant position of the Army's choosing, or he can face legal action for attempting to draft dodge.

Bucky sits alone in their crummy apartment, the letter before him on the table, and he hates this war with a whisper of the fire of his kind. He fists his hands in his lap.

He can't let them arrest him. That would crush Steve, and Bucky can't face the look of betrayal he knows he'd see. Option three is no option at all.

Working a non-combative post is marginally better, but Bucky knows he would excel in an active position. He was God's own soldier millennia before Adolf Hitler was born, before the powder keg of the Great War lit off, before the countries of Europe were recognizable as Europe. He knows war. If he has no real choice, far better to go all the way, where he might make a difference for frightened young boys. He sends his reply.

He receives a letter informing him to report to the nearest recruiting station for induction. It's the same one he took Steve to a year ago. He stands in a line in his undershorts, listening to the guys around him talk big. "Krauts won't even know what hit 'em," says the gangly kid on Bucky's left.

A heavily muscled, pickaxe-faced man across from them cracks his knuckles. "My brother was at Pearl Harbor," he says. "Gonna skin me some squinties."

Bucky doesn't say anything. He's weighed and measured and his pristine medical history glanced over before the inevitable 1A stamp slams down. He's told to report to Camp McCoy no later than 0700 hours a week from tomorrow.

He goes home with heavy steps and a heavier heart. Steve's waiting when he gets home. His smile is tight, but honest, and he—Bucky can't do it. He can't tell Steve, this beautiful, brave idiot who wants nothing as much as he wants to fight for his country, that he got drafted and fought it with everything he had. He pastes a smile over his terror and flourishes his papers. "I just enlisted," he says, the lie sharp on his tongue.

Steve is shocked. Bucky feels it roll through him like a wave of thunder, making his ears ring and his heart pound. "That's—that's great, Buck," he says, and he can't hide his bitter envy, though he tries.

"Come out with me?" Bucky asks, desperate for as much of Steve as he can grab hold of. "I've got a bit saved by, we can take the train on up, go dancing, maybe hear some jazz."

Steve stares down at his open sketchbook. "Nah, you go on," he says. "Someone's gotta stay and keep the home fires burning."

Bucky winds up at a jazz dive in Harlem, drinking to forget and letting the music drift him away. He's contemplating his reflection in the mirror behind the bar when a kid sits down on the barstool beside him. Bucky turns to tell him off, but there's a familiar fire behind the eyes staring back at him, and Bucky sighs. He tips back the rest of his bourbon.

"Yo, gate," Baruchiel says. He's older, a teenager still growing into his feet. He smiles, and his teeth are white in the gloom. "What, got your glasses on? Can't recognize your brother?" He's at ease here, in his element, and he waves aside the bartender's sharp look with a casual, "Relax, man, he's hep. We just gonna sit here an' collar us some jive."

He turns back to Bucky, and after a moment his smile drops away into suspicion. "You ain't here for the music, are you."

Bucky, starting in on his fourth whiskey of the evening, snorts.

"No way. _No way_. You got drafted."

Bucky shrugs.

"Don't pull that shit with me. Why in hell didn't you go an' _persuade_ some of the jeffs down at the recruitment office? Or just ignore it? Ain't no one can dodge the draft like you'n me."

Bucky's hand trembles around the tumbler. "The thought... honestly never occurred." That's a lie. It did occur. It just didn't last, not with a man like Steve for a best friend.

"Never—man, you a damn fool, you know that? A damn fool."

"It's been said."

Baruchiel shakes his head, sagging against the bar. "Whatcha gonna do, then?"

"Gonna report as ordered. Got nothin' else I can do."

"And your boy? What about him?"

Bucky's mouth works, but the words won't come out. His thoughts speak eloquently enough, however, and the horror show of his worst nightmares play across the screen of his mind's eye. Steve facing down street gangs alone. Steve hacking up a lung in his bed, shivering and sick, alone. Steve finding the perfect dumb shit doctor he so desperately wants, getting a 1A, and dying on the front. Alone. Bucky never getting to see Steve's face again, to hug him again, to make fun of his cowlicks and call him Skeezix until he's crying with laughter. Bucky tries to fight them back, but it's already too late. He hangs his head.

There's a pause. "Shit. _Shit_."

Bucky winces.

"You are a sad excuse for a guardian angel, you know that?" Baruchiel stares at him, eyes wide. "You supposed to _protect_ him, not fall in love with him! You know why that is? It's 'cause when we do our brains fly right on out the window! It's 'cause it ain't fair for either one'a you!"

Bucky's shoulders slump. Early-stage regret, he's coming to find, is a panicky feeling, one that's settling like lead in the pit of his stomach.

Baruchiel jumps off his stool. "You a damn fool," he murmurs, like a final seal on an oath. He stares at Bucky for a moment, then shakes his head. "Ain't nothin' you can do but try to forget a while, is there."

Bucky tips back his whiskey. "Nope."

They listen to the band play set after set, and they don't speak at all for the rest of the night.

***

Bucky has always known he was stronger than other men. He lifts appliances for a living; there's no way he couldn't have noticed. He's never done a proper side-by-side comparison with anyone other than Steve, however, and Steve can barely manage a push-up. He assumed he wasn't much more than the average fella, just with a little extra on the side.

Basic disabuses him of that notion. The exercises are laughably easy; he has to rein himself in to keep from standing out too far from his peers. As it is, he sets too many records in too many fields, and his marksmanship gets him nudged toward the top of the ranks. He begins to hate morning drills for the constant effort to maintain the illusion. He also hates them because it's the middle of February, and Wisconsin is fucking cold.

It's colder than the sphincter of Hell, and he is alone amidst a sea of recruits. The boys around him (and they are boys; Bucky has never felt so keenly the weight of his years, surrounded by their naive innocence and fire) are from all over the country. Some collapse at the end of the day, but most say it's the easiest work they've ever done, and with three squares, to boot.

He misses Steve like a missing limb. The letters he gets are barely enough, a mere band-aid over a gaping wound.

 _"The landlord never did get the boiler fixed,"_ Steve writes. _"Mrs. Geraldine next door sends her daughters over when she gets busy, and they wind up shivering on your bed. I draw them and give them pennies, sometimes."_

_"It's not the same without you, Buck. Daisy asks about you all the time; she's excited her big brother's gonna be a soldier."_

He can hear Steve's omissions in them.

 _It's cold at nights_.

 _I miss you_.

His family's letters are easier to bear. It feels disloyal, but he was never as close to them as he is to Steve. He thinks his mother knows. She's always had an eye for his irregularities.

He pushes those thoughts aside, and concentrates on getting through Basic. The cold and mud and the constant drills wear at him, angel or no. He starts to fear the raised voice of the drill instructor, and he understands what he's doing—giving the recruits an enemy that's immediate and untouchable, to forge them together—but it doesn't make the ten weeks go by any easier (or the God _damned_ additional six for sniper training, because Bucky has no luck at all). He takes to tucking Steve's most recent letter in his shirt and pulling it out when he gets the chance, to run his fingers over the words and imagine Steve, hunched over the table and splattered with ink, writing it. Safe. Alive.

"Lookie here, boys, looks like Barnes's got himself a sweetheart!" Whoops rise and fall in the barracks, and Bucky stuffs Steve's letter back in his shirt.

"It's nothing," he mutters, blushing.

"Don't look like nothing," Jackson says, prodding Bucky in the chest, where the letter sits. "Aww, he keeps it over his heart an' everything." A round of laughter meets with these words. "C'mon, Barnes, you gotta tell us, now. What's she like?"

"I don't gotta tell you a damn thing, Jackson," Bucky says as mildly as he can. _Sweetheart_ , his mind repeats. _Sweetheart_. The thoughts of _Steve_ and _sweetheart_ clash in his brain, tempting and embarrassing in turn. It's sappy and ridiculous and he can't seem to let it go.

Every time he gets a letter after that, the boys hoot and holler, and Bucky says nothing, but he makes sure his footlocker is properly locked, and that Steve's letters are hidden inside his family's.

Basic flies by in a whirl of boys playing at war, and too soon (and not soon enough) Bucky finds himself wearing his dress browns at the train station, a transfer to Manhattan in his hand and his heart in his throat. He is a newly minted buck sergeant in the 107th infantry, and his orders are pending.

All he cares about is seeing Steve one last time before he leaves.

***

Steve's there to meet him along with his family, and his sisters put up a screeching ruckus when he steps off the train. "You sound like a herd of cats getting skinned," he laughs, scooping up Daisy and swinging her around in a circle. "Were you good while I was gone?"

"Yeah, Bucky, I was. Ask Steve."

Steve rolls his eyes, and Bucky squints. "You know, I'm not sure you're telling the truth, Daisy-girl. Am I gonna find your dolls all over the floor when I come visit tonight?"

"I'm too old for dolls," Daisy says with all the authority of an I'm-almost-thirteen-geez-year-old, even though everyone there knows it's a bald-faced lie.

"Were you coming to dinner, Steve?" Winifred asks.

"If you'll have me, Mrs. Barnes," he says, and they all troop back to the Barnes apartment, Steve in tow. The walk takes nearly twice as long as it should, because the whole neighborhood seems to come out to congratulate Bucky on enlisting. Everyone asks what Basic was like, when he's shipping out, how many Germans he's going to kill. Bucky answers what he can, and tries not to think that all these people are congratulating him for abandoning Steve.

He knows Steve's a grown man. He knows as an angel he should be keeping a modicum of distance, instead of clinging the way he is. But it's far too late to be changing his ways, and he wouldn't even if he could.

He gets a two-week furlough before he's to report for duty. He spends it in the bars and hangouts, all his favorite, familiar places in Brooklyn, with Steve, and with his sisters. He fills himself with as many warm memories as he can, because Europe is cold, and war is colder. He spends his nights in a dozen different beds, and his dreams are all of Steve weighed down with GI gear, wheezing his way through an asthma attack while a German or a Jap runs him through on the end of his bayonet. He pictures Steve caught in a foxhole, breathing in the damp and picking up a cold that leaves him stranded in the muck and dying without Bucky there to put him back together.

He gets in late, the night before he ships out, smelling of Connie and Bonnie and sweat, but Steve's still awake, perched on the fire escape outside the kitchen window. He's a bundle of anxiety and excitement, though he keeps it from his face. "Hey, Buck," he says. "How was dancing?"

"You went and did something, didn't you," Bucky says, reading the signs in Steve's heart. "What did you do?"

Steve sputters for a moment, but then his stubbornness surfaces, and he raises his chin. "I enlisted."

A sick flush pours through Bucky's body, and he stares dumbfounded at his charge. "There's no way," he says. "You're—there's no way."

"I found a doctor. Dr. Erskine. He's part of a top secret program or something, said he wasn't looking for the tough guy."

"So, what? You signed up to be a lab rat? Test it on our own to make _sure_ it works on the Nazis!"

"What the hell, Bucky?" Steve snaps, slipping through the open window to face him down. "What right do you _have_ to tell me what I can and can't do?"

 _I have every right!_ he wants to scream, but Steve can't know, can't hear. "Excuse me if I don't wanna see my best friend end up dead in a ditch because he was too stupid to see reality."

As soon as he says it he knows it's a mistake. All his life Steve's been told what he can't do. _You're too small_ , they say. _You're too weak, too sick, go somewhere you won't snap like a twig, go somewhere you'll be useful, 'cause it ain't here_. Steve has lived his whole life pressing against what other people thought he could do, and it made him fight all the harder.

His frown goes dark. "You want to leave it now, Buck."

And Bucky does, because it's Steve that says it. His heart is cramping in his chest, but Steve tells him to drop it, so he does. He sits down on his bed and puts his head in his hands. "Oh, God," he grates out.

"It'll be okay," Steve says awkwardly, his anger draining out of him. "I can handle myself."

Bucky digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. "No, you'll pick a fight with the biggest, meanest kid on the playground and I won't be there to stop him."

Steve sighs. "You can't always fight them for me, Buck," he says. "You gotta let me get a hit in once in a while."

"Well," Bucky says, swallowing through the knot in his throat, "You'll get a lot of chances, now."

Steve doesn't say anything.

"Write to me," Bucky says, not even bothering to put up a front. "And just—stay safe, okay? Don't go picking fights." _Don't let some eugenicist play with your life. Don't die. Please. Please, don't leave me_.

"I can handle myself, Buck," Steve says again, and Bucky shakes his head because he knows Steve Rogers.

The seconds tick away, counting down to the hour Bucky will have to leave, and he feels—there's a charge in the air about them, as though something is about to change so absolutely they won't even recognize each other by the end. He shudders, and Steve sits next to him on the bed, bumping their shoulders together. "It'll be alright," he says. He takes Bucky's hand in his own. "We'll get through this, and it'll be like old times again."

Bucky clings to him like a lifeline. "If you believe that, Rogers, then I have a bridge to sell you."

"Guess I better check my savings," Steve says with a wry smile. His focused determination makes Bucky's eyes burn with angry tears. He turns his face away so Steve doesn't see. He'd protest, but Steve's got the bit between his teeth, and Bucky doesn't have the energy left to fight him. He slumps back against the wall, mussing the creases on his uniform and dragging Steve down with him.

They sit together until exhaustion takes its toll, and they fall asleep in Bucky's bed, hands clasped and bodies bent toward each other like closed parentheses.

Bucky dreams of gunfire, and of broad shoulders, and Steve's bright smile.

***

Bucky wakes the next morning before dawn. He straightens himself out and stands beside the bed, watching Steve sleep. "I wish you could take me to the train station and kiss me goodbye," he says softly. "I wish we could do that."

Daisy kisses his cheek instead, and he makes her swear on her favorite doll's head that she'll keep his lucky baseball safe. Becky squeezes him until he's afraid his buttons will pop off. Rosie just cries, even though she's fifteen and too old to be crying over her idiot brother and tries to hide it. "I'll send what I can," he says to his mother. Winifred, grayer and more stooped, now, nods. She cradles his face between her hands and says, "You just come back, Bucky. You just come back home."

"I will. I promise."

She gives him a sad smile, then gathers his sisters close to see him off.

Bucky goes to war. It's the first familiar thing since he stopped going to church, and like all human things it is smeared and primitive in comparison. Bucky is a foot soldier in God's army; he is no stranger to combat. He is good at it. But the satisfaction he gets from a clean kill is tarnished by the blood and screaming, the endless waiting, and the constant, low-level fear. He watches Jackson step on a land mine two months in, when they're pushing through Hitler's Winter Line. He throws up right there on the battlefield, then picks up his rifle and gets back to fighting.

The thought of Steve here is horrifying.

He meets Timothy Dugan in a bombed-out Italian cafe. The townsfolk have all run away, been captured, or been executed, and the streets are eerily empty. They find a cache of wine beneath the floorboards, and that's reason enough to party. They've secured the area; there's no sign of any Germans for miles around. Bucky's never tasted wine before, but it's not bad—miles better than the taste of his canteen, anyhow—and it gets you drunk. He sits at the table, staring at nothing and trying to forget the image of Jackson's legs flying one way and his body flying the other.

A sudden uproar behind him catches his attention, and he turns to look. Two men are arm-wrestling, and a crowd has gathered around them. Bets are flying, mostly for cigarettes and chocolate rations, and most of it seems in favor of the man in the bowler hat. Bucky watches as he pushes the other man's arm down, steady and inexorable as the tide, and cheers and groans break throughout. Bucky stands and makes his way over to their table.

"I'll play you," he says. The man in the bowler hat looks him up and down.

"You sure? No offense, kid, but you look like a stiff breeze'll blow you over."

Bucky smiles. "I can hold up against a breeze, and I can hold up against you."

"Big words," the man says, grinning back, and holds up his hand. Muscles ripple over his arm. Bucky takes off his coat and drapes it over the back of his chair. The man's hand is callused in his own.

"Name's Dugan," the man says. "Everyone calls me Dum-Dum."

Bucky narrows his eyes, smirking. "Thought dumdums weren't allowed in war."

Dugan laughs, blue eyes twinkling. "Uncle Sam took one look at me and decided different," he says, and with that the bout begins.

Bucky gives credit where it's due: Dugan isn't a pushover. He doesn't bother hiding his feral smile, though, when their clasped hands tip in his favor, and Dugan's eyes widen in surprise. All around he can hear the shouts and cheers, the chorusing groans, but all he pays attention to is his arm pressing Dugan's back into the table.

"Bucky Barnes," he says after, holding out his hand.

Dugan takes it, and tips back his bowler hat. "Gotta say, Barnes, I didn't think you had it in you."

"I'm a regular hollow-point," he says, and Dugan claps him on the back, laughing his booming laugh.

"I'll make sure to aim you at the Krauts, next time."

"No, don't do that!" one of the onlookers shouts. "They'll complain about the inhumanity of it and get him kicked out of the Army!"

Bucky grins. "Hey, I like the sound of that!" Laughter rises all around, and for a time Bucky lets himself forget.

The next day he finds out Dugan was rotated into his squad to replace Jackson, and they exchange nods and smiles. "Fine day for hunting Germans, ain't it, Barnes," he says, and Bucky snorts.

"That's Sergeant Barnes when we're in the field, Corporal, I still outrank you."

"Sir, yes sir!"

The greenhorn privates watch them warily, and Bucky spends the rest of the day making sure that, despite Dugan's irreverence, he is, as far as they're concerned, God Almighty Himself come down to frown at the state of their socks.

"You ain't helping me much with the men, here, Dum-Dum," Bucky says later. They're in a town with actual people in it, for once, and Dugan's eyeing the dames something fierce. "I keep trying to put the fear of God in them and you keep laughing in my face."

"It's a funny-looking face," Dugan says, and Bucky rolls his eyes.

"See, that right there. That's why they don't listen to me."

Dugan shoves a beer into his hand. "They listen to you fine, Barnes. Hell, they hang on to your every word. Now you keep that aforementioned fine, pretty face away from the ladies a while, and let the rest of us poor bastards have a chance."

Bucky waves him on with a lazy smile. "Knock yourself out."

Weeks pass. Summer fades in a haze of blood, and summer heat eases into the chill of fall. Bucky starts checking the squad over for signs of hypothermia instead of heat exhaustion. Packets of v-mail come in whenever they're in a secure location, and one packet has a bunch of newsreels about some propaganda machine called Captain America.

"Look at that loon," Fetton says when they sit down to watch them. "Prancin' around in tights instead of fightin' like the rest of us."

The man on the screen is tall and broad as a house, but he moves in a way that has Bucky frowning in recognition—until he jumps out from behind a tank to spray imaginary enemies with imaginary bullets, and Bucky can't help but laugh. "What a joke. He'd be dead already if that was a war zone. 'Man with the Plan,' my ass."

"My DI would have had him running laps 'til he puked just for holding his gun like that."

They boo it down until the operators swap it out for the Marlene Dietrich film set to follow.

Bucky tries to focus on Marlene, but his mind sticks on Steve. He misses their little rattrap apartment, the cold winter nights when he could wrap himself around Steve and say it was for warmth, or the summer days when it was so hot they both took off their shirts and Bucky could look all he wanted when Steve wasn't paying attention. When the actors onscreen kiss, Bucky thinks of kissing Steve.

He hopes he's alright. His letters come through regular as anything in this war, but they're redacted in places, and Bucky knows Steve enough to know when he's talking around something—none of the postmarks are from New York, for one. Bucky doesn't know what to make of it. He hunches over them and broods whenever there's a gap in the fighting.

Dugan catches him eyeing up another man one night. "It's not what it looks like," Bucky swears, fighting against the urge to panic.

Dugan gives him an even look. "I saw the name on one of your letters," he says. "Fell out of your gear when you were packing up. Not many gals named Steve, and not many guys hoard over a letter from their best friend like that."

Bucky swallows. _Shit_. "You never said anything." He prepares himself for ten kinds of unpleasantness. He doesn't think Dugan is the sort of man to be cruel, but if he wanted he could get Bucky kicked out of the Army on sodomy charges. Or worse.

Dugan drinks, silent for a time. "Well. There was that one time a grenade landed in the foxhole and you threw it right back out. Didn't flinch or nothing. And that time you carried Happy's pack for him when he was shot, and half-carried Happy, too. Oh, and that time we was settling in for the night 'cause intel said not to expect any action, but you had us lock and load anyway, and we ambushed Fritz right back." He leans back in his chair. "You seem an awful lot like a good luck charm sometimes, Barnes."

Bucky ducks his head, but Dugan claps him on the shoulder, tucks him in close and says, "If you going after the fellas leaves some of the dames for the rest of us, I won't care a bit."

Bucky nods, torn between laughter and lingering fear, and that's that. He keeps his hook-ups discreet, and he knows Dugan has his back.

Then comes Azzano. Then comes HYDRA, and their weapons spit energy unlike anything Bucky has seen on Earth. This is power from beyond the planes; it's not meant for mortal hands, and Bucky's shock catches him flatfooted on the battlefield. He and almost all of the 107th what aren't killed outright are captured. Bucky translates for the surrender, and they're loaded into trucks and taken to a camp somewhere in Austria. No one takes their names or asks about their wounded. Bucky sees the officers exchanging dark, worried looks.

They're thrown into cells, and they find they're not the first unit to have been captured. Bucky meets a British louie named Falsworth and a black private named Jones. Both their units were captured in France, then trucked to the complex like the 107th was.

"It's a factory," Falsworth says, "though I'll be deuced if I know what it is we're building. It bloody _glows_." The circles under his eyes are pronounced against his ghost-pale face.

"Think it's some kind of power source," Jones says. "I heard the little doc running around talking about insulation and reinforcing the power cables, and about something called a tesseract. Don't know what the hell that is, but it's in the middle of it all."

Bucky sits up straight at _tesseract_ , his mind churning through the implications. "You speak German?" he asks, and Jones nods.

"It's been rather helpful," Falsworth says. "The guards are... temperamental, to say the least. He's defused more than one situation."

"Gets you some immunity, too, I bet," Dugan says, and Bucky nods. He's heard plenty of rhetoric over the years, but the Nazis take the cake. He can't imagine it's easy for Jones to be a Negro in a Nazi camp.

Jones just stares down at his boots.

Bucky, operating on a hunch, looks around and sees several more black faces scattered throughout the cages, even a few Orientals. Not nearly enough for a full unit, let alone two. He turns back to Jones. "What about the rest of your unit?"

Jones shrugs helplessly. "Not much I could do for 'em. They split us up as soon as they brought us in, they do it to everybody."

Bucky swallows back his horror.

"The better to keep us from revolting, my dear," Falsworth murmurs, looking up at the passing tread of a guard overhead.

It's miserably cold that night. It's only October, but the factory is in the mountains, and the guards don't bother giving the prisoners blankets. In the morning, Bucky is dragged half-asleep from the cage along with the rest of the men and set to work on the factory floor. His heart jumps to his throat when he sees what they're working on. He does what the men around him do, packing the glowing blue cartridges into massive spools and loading them onto rods, and his hands tremble at the touch of the warped, twisted holy fire within. The entire day he does nothing but touch it, and it floods his soul with an eerie blue light.

It goes on that way for days and days, so long that Bucky loses track of time. He curls up between Falsworth and Dugan when it gets too cold to sleep, and during the day he works his mortal flesh to the bone. His spirit, meanwhile, siphons off the energy of the blue light, and it metastasizes to something dangerous and swollen. He's never been stronger than he is now, and never has he been weaker.

The little doctor, Zola, watches them from the command booth above the factory floor. He has hushed conversations with his scientists when he comes down to inspect, but otherwise stays above the toiling mass of men he has building his contraptions. Every so often, however, he will accompany the guards to the cells and point out one or two men. They take them to the other side of the factory, where Zola has his workshop. Some go with dignity, others spitting with anger, some tearful and shaky.

None of them ever returns.

The rations are barely enough, the work too much, and men die off at an alarming rate. HYDRA makes sure to keep the supply of POWs steady, and after a while Bucky's group gets a new cellmate. His name is Jacques Dernier, and he's a soldier for the Free French. His English is patchy, mostly consisting of drinking songs and filthy jokes, but Bucky, Falsworth and Jones all speak French, so it makes little difference.

"La situation est mauvaise, en France," he says, smoothing down his mustache with trembling fingers. "Les Allemands sont bien établis, et prennet en étau nos lignes de ravitaillement. Vos pays, ils nous aident—mais ce n'est pas assez."

Dernier is a small, jittery man and feels the short rations keenly, but once they find he puts out heat like a furnace he's quickly incorporated into their huddle when night falls and the mercury drops.

There's little to do in the close confines of the cell but talk. Their cards were confiscated with their weapons, and they pass the time trying to teach Dugan French (he makes rude noises about dropped consonants that have Dernier decrying the tastelessness of Americans) and Dernier English (certain sounds he finds very difficult to pronounce, and Dugan mocks him mercilessly). They tell all their jokes until they're stale, then talk about their families. Jones has a girl he worries over; turns out he was planning to propose when he was drafted.

"Just want to see her again," he says. "It's all I want."

Dernier has a wife, who also fights for the Free French. She wasn't taken with their unit, and Bucky hears the desperate, worried pounding of his heart at night, when he can no longer keep his fears of her death tamped down.

Falsworth is a lord, of all things. Lord James Montgomery Falsworth, a baron somewhere off in Surrey. "You know you're every American stereotype of the English all rolled into one, right?" Bucky says, managing to find a sly grin despite their circumstances.

"Piss off," Falsworth says in his stuffiest voice. "Like you're any better."

Dugan was a circus strongman, to the surprise of no one. "My mother was the tattooed woman and my father was the knife-thrower," he laughs, and Bucky isn't sure if he's lying or not.

The most common, most fruitless topic of conversation, however, is whether Command is planning for their rescue. Days pass and no one comes, and hope dwindles.

Bucky has never felt this abandoned in all his long life. His nightmares change: instead of Steve dying on the front, he sees his own death here in this factory, and Steve's inevitable decline back at home. He sees Steve in their apartment, coughing and wracked with fever—only now, Bucky isn't there to pull him back from the edge of death. In the worst dreams, it takes them days to find Steve's body. He curls around his misery and fights back tears.

Eventually the pressure of working so close to the tesseract energy becomes too much, and Bucky's clenched grip on his power slips. It shows as a flash of white before he catches it back in a stranglehold, gasping. He looks around. He's not the only one looking, but no one else seems to realize what the flash was. A guard raises his baton and Bucky throws up his hands. "Ich weiß nicht, was passiert ist!" he shouts. "Es war nicht ich!"

They hit him anyway. He picks himself off the ground, retakes his place before they can decide to kick him, and gets back to work.

He thinks that's the end of it, at least until his next slip, but the soldiers come to his cell that night. The others try to put up a fuss, but Bucky shushes them. "You'll only get yourselves shot," he says.

"But they're gonna kill you," Dugan says, and Bucky gives him a twisted, bitter smile.

"Better one than five," he says, and goes with the guards, fear rolling in his gut.

Doctor Zola is _very_ pleased to meet Bucky. "You are more than you seem, Sergeant Barnes," he says.

They're sitting at a table, a tea set placed between them. "A custom I picked up from my tenure in England," he says to Bucky's perplexed look. "With the cessation of trade, however, I find it is difficult to obtain more. You should count yourself fortunate that I am willing to serve you from my private store."

Bucky says nothing. If he starts talking, it will be easier to keep talking. They won't get any answers from him.

"I want you to understand, this is not about any strategic intelligence you may or may not have," Zola says, and sips his tea. "This is about what you may or may not _be_. You are not quite human, are you, Sergeant?"

Bucky stills, feeling like a mouse caught in a cat's paws. "I don't know what you're talking about," he says. His voice is hoarse with fear. He pictures wrapping his fingers around Zola's throat and squeezing, but the guns trained on him stay his hands.

"I think you do. It would be easier, of course, if you simply told me, so I didn't have to guess?" He pauses, as though Bucky might actually reply, and sighs when he doesn't. "I thought as much. This will make things much harder." He sets down his cup and stands. He moves toward the bank of windows overlooking the factory floor, his hands clasped behind his back.

"You may have noticed this factory is run by prisoners of war. They are collected from all over the German fronts. All _Allies_." He turns back to Bucky. "I can easily obtain more, if these men die. And they will die, Sergeant, if you attempt to hurt me or my assistants, or try to escape in any fashion. I have left standing orders with the guards to terminate every single man in those cells if I don't continue to give the counter-order. Do we understand each other?"

Bucky's voice, when he finally speaks, feels like it's been dragged over broken glass. "Yeah. We do."

"Excellent. Now if you would be so kind as to lie down on this table?" He gestures to the reinforced operating-style table in the center of the room. Straps line the sides, and an ominous-looking emitter, looking as though it was pulled straight from the serials, hovers over it.

Bucky stands and straightens his shoulders. "You can force me to cooperate, but if you want me on that table you're gonna have to dope me, first."

Zola's expression is inscrutable. "It is useful to know drugs have an effect on you," he says. "But so be it." He nods to the guards, and they move to seize Bucky. He fights, but it is half-hearted; one of the guards puts his arm in a vicious joint-lock and that's it, it's over. Zola produces a hypodermic, and taking the proffered arm, injects its contents into Bucky's vein. Bucky bares his teeth at him in a snarl, but it's a futile gesture. He doesn't fling the guard away or smash Zola's glasses into his face, and already the drug is licking at the edges of his mind. He slumps in the guard's arms.

"Carry him over, please," he hears in German. The world lurches, swirling madly before his eyes, and Bucky has to restrain the urge to vomit. They strip off his coat and his uniform shirt, and the table is cold through his thermals. Metal bands cage his arms and legs.

Then the tests begin.

They expose him to prolonged doses of the glowing light. They place cartridges around him until he's sweating and shaking. "It is not enough," Zola says, and he returns with a shielded case. He opens it, and Bucky cries out. It's a _tesseract_ , God, it's _the_ tesseract, the one powering this Godforsaken factory, and it's warped almost beyond recognition by its captivity. It pours off energy, and his spirit absorbs it like a sponge. This time he can't hold back the torrent of light that rips through him. He Sees with angelic acuity, and Hears everything twenty miles around, and Smells and Tastes and Touches, besides. He screams, and it's the scream of an angel, filled with harmonics that shatter the delicate instruments around him. Shadows of a multitude of wings rear from his shoulders, cutting through the light of his rupture and disregarding any corporeal thing in their way.

He hears the shock in his tormentors' minds, their terrified and excited chatter, until the world goes silent and dark. He curls up safe in his mind, away from the horror he has unleashed on his body.

Mortal flesh is not meant to bear the weight of an angel's might. He is blinded and deaf, his voice torn out, his skin scorched from the barest unshielded touch of his wings. He is raw and oversensitive. He shies away from his own soul, and seals down his power every way he knows how.

He heals, of course; he heals too quickly and too perfectly, and when his hearing returns Zola snaps his fingers to the ever-present guard. Moments later the distant retort of gunfire clatters through the halls.

"That, Sergeant, was twenty men. You killed two of my scientists with that display, enlightening as it was, and I am afraid it must be punished."

Bucky swears at him in all the tongues he knows, and writhes against the straps holding him down, but the metal is impossibly strong and Bucky is weaker than he has ever been.

They don't expose him to the tesseract again. Instead, an endless wave of experiments follow. They measure how long it takes for his body to heal from a pinprick, a scratch, a cut, a punctured lung, a severed finger. They decide not to try more than the finger when it nearly doesn't reattach. They test his response to various poisons. He fails to die, but his heart races so fast he thinks it will surely stop from the strain—or it slows until each drugged beat feels like a blow to the chest and he loses consciousness. One memorable occasion he suffers seizures so severe they tear his muscles from his bones. They measure how long it takes for him to heal from that, too. Zola draws vial after vial of blood and mutters to himself with each new test. Bucky repeats his name, rank and serial number to keep himself sane.

"No one is coming for you," Zola whispers in his ear. "You cannot escape. You are forgotten." Over and over, until the tears run hot down Bucky's temples. He sees the emptiness in this man's soul, and he despairs.

"Steve," he whispers brokenly, then returns to his name, rank and number.

He lingers in that purgatory, that uncertain in-between separating the poles of life and death, and stares into the darkest parts of himself. The monotony is broken only by experiments, and the experiments only stop at Zola's whim.

It seems he's been on that table forever, and will always be on that table. Often they don't bother taking him off at night, leaving him strapped down and delirious. It's on such a night he's woken from a restless sleep by the sound of gunshots. Panic rips through him, and he screams. "I didn't do anything! Oh God, stop! _Please!_ "

But there's no one in the room with him, and no one hears. He whispers _namerankserial_ over and over like a ward against evil. Visions of Dugan, of Jones, Dernier and Falsworth being put down like sick dogs on Zola's command flash through his mind. He barely registers when the alarms begin to blare.

"Bucky!" A cruelly familiar voice slips through the din. Bucky's heart falters. _No. No, please not him. Let me keep him, don't tarnish him, too_. It takes a moment to register that, instead of fading or warping, his hallucination is ripping away the bars holding him down. Slowly, so as not to jar his aching head, he looks over.

He can't process what he sees. "Is, is that—"

"It's me, it's Steve," the hallucination replies, his voice gentle and horrified, and Bucky just stares, unable to help his smile. _Steve_. Oh God, for the mercy of one last glimpse, it's a sweet, wonderful agony.

But the hallucination smiles back, says, "Come on," and pulls Bucky upright and off the table. Bucky gasps as sensation floods in. Shadows jump and sharpen, sounds rush into his ears, and particles of air pummel his skin each time he shifts. He has been restrained for so long, forced into his mortal flesh alone. He draws away from his senses, terrified of overloading, and pulls back into the shadows and into Steve's side.

And Steve is _there_ , Steve is beside him, warm and strong and full of the Light of the Virtues, and—

"I thought you were dead," Steve says, cupping Bucky's face before steadying him.

Bucky, staring in shock, can only say, "I thought you were smaller."

This man, vibrating with Holy blessing, both is and isn't Bucky's closest friend. He smells like Steve on his healthiest days, but more so; he sounds like Steve, minus his wheeze; his eyes show Steve's soul, and it is _home_ , for all that the rest of him is foreign, layered with muscle and _too tall_. Bucky lets Steve sling his arm over his shoulders and drag him from the room.

"What happened to you?" he asks, his mind numb with relief and shock and his body screaming from inactivity and drugs.

"I joined the Army," Steve replies with false innocence. It makes Bucky want to smack him upside the head.

One look at Steve, though, tells him enough. He glows with an inner light as though touched by the Virtues, but he lacks their distinctive imprint. The only holy hand on Steve's brow is his own. No angel of the Most High did this, he realizes; this is a work of mortal men.

 _This_ is what his doctor did to him. Steve shines, and Bucky averts his eyes. He's become too used to darkness.

It is an age, it seems, where men reach for power beyond their ken. Bucky shudders. Such a power in the hands of weak, cruel men, men like Zola...

He staggers after Steve, and upon a balcony over an inferno he sees what Hell the careless hand of man might wreak.

"You haven't got one of those, do you?" he asks Steve, horrified by Schmidt's malformation. His soul is twisted and jagged as barbed wire, and Bucky can't pull his eyes away. _Is this what you will become, Steve?_

Steve doesn't answer, instead striding forward to confront this new enemy. Bucky swallows his gorge and sways where he stands. He touches his power, but its purifying fires sting, and he pulls away. He is _afraid_. Steve stands alone against evil, because his guardian angel is too great a coward to help him.

They exchange blows. Steve is knocked back, and Bucky lurches toward him, the rail digging into his stomach. Steve clambers to his feet, but not before they hear a mechanical clank and the bridge separates.

Only then does Bucky notice Zola, half-hidden behind the roiling mess that is Johann Schmidt, and his trembling, so recently subsided, returns in full force. The rest of the conversation is lost on him. He only sees Zola's face looming over him, manic glee in those piggy eyes. He closes his own, but the image stays, and a cold sweat breaks out over his body.

"Up," Steve orders, breaking Bucky free from his trance, and pushes him toward the stairs.

Bucky holds back his whimpers. His joints ache, his muscles are jelly, and exhaustion rides hard on his shoulders. He wants nothing more than to burrow against Steve's back, just like old times, and go to sleep.

The factory reeks of burning fuel and hot stone. Shock waves ripple through the air, and sparks kick up higher and higher, licking at their heels. Steve is behind him, coaxing him on; they reach a gantry spanning the gap between them and their way out. Bucky looks down over the mess of flames and shredded metal, and swallows. The beam is uncomfortably narrow.

"Let's go," Steve says. "One at a time." His hands are strong on Bucky's arms, steadying him as he helps him over the rail. Bucky's hands are shaking and slick with sweat. Steve's concern is sharp through his touch; he doesn't want to let Bucky go. Bucky sets his jaw and takes the first step. _Libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum_.

Another explosion shatters the air, and the gantry lurches. The pit of Bucky's stomach falls away. He thrusts out his hands to steady himself, and takes another step, and another. He refuses to let himself think of his weight on the slender bridge, or of Steve waiting behind him, or of falling.

The next lurch draws a reedy gasp from his lungs, and this time the sinking doesn't stop. The metal creaks, the vibrations grow, and instinct drives Bucky forward into a run. Oh _God_ , he can feel the beam falling away beneath his feet. A vision of falling through flame and smoke to a bitter end on the floor below sparks through his mind. His body doesn't fail him, and he finds himself clinging to the far rail, his ribs stinging from the impact. He hauls himself up and over, relief icy in his veins.

Until he looks back across the yawning gap separating him from Steve, and horror chokes him. "Gotta be a rope or something!" he shouts, forcing hope through his despair.

"Just go!" Steve yells, waving him onward. "Get out of here!"

"No! Not without you!" Bucky breathes in the smell of burning fuel and presses his hands against hot metal, and he glares at Steve across the gap. Bright, clear, cleansing anger flushes through him, driving his fear away. He will stay here until Steve finds a way across or the factory roof comes down. Bucky will not leave him.

When anyone asks, later, how Steve managed to bridge the gap, Bucky will shrug and say, "Luck of the Devil," and change the subject. The truth of it is, Steve shouldn't have made it across. His jump was poorly made, too low, and with a bad running start. Bucky watches him windmill through the empty air, his heart in his throat, and he _knows_ he won't make it. Panic surges through him and he throws out his hands, and somehow, whether by a miracle of the Most High or Bucky's own stubbornness, Steve's hands land square in Bucky's own. Then gravity catches up to him, and Bucky slams forward against the rail. He cries out, and he pulls. With all his feeble strength he pulls, drawing in the maelstrom of sensation to tap into his inherent power, and with a guttural yell he draws Steve up to the platform.

"You're Goddamn heavy," he says, and his knees give out from under him.

"Bucky!" Steve catches him before he hits the floor and flings his arm over his shoulder once again. They tumble down the stairs and emerge from the factory in a gout of smoke and flame, soot-streaked and sweaty, and the cool night air, scented with pine and wet earth beneath the stench of burning flesh and exhaust, feels like a benediction upon Bucky's brow. He feels washed clean, and he shivers. Steve is a line of heat pressing against his side, and he's _free_.

***

He almost cries when he sees Dugan alive. He throws off Steve's arm to wrap him in a bone-crushing hug. "I thought they'd killed you," he says. "I could hear the gunshots."

Dugan's eyes are wet, too, and his laugh rides the knife edge of hysteria. "Nah, that was just Cap springing us so we could kick HYDRA back to Berlin," he says. "Lemme go, you're getting snot on my nice clean coat."

"Coat's not been clean in a month and you know it," Bucky replies, his smile feeling as brittle as the rest of him. This euphoria won't last, but by God he's not going to waste it while it's here.

He scans the crowd, desperate for any more familiar faces, and sees Fetton from his squad, looking half-dead with hunger but as ornery as ever, and dozens of others besides; moreover, he finds Falsworth, Jones and Dernier, all of them hale and whole. He limps over to them as fast as he can.

"We heard you screaming, Bucky," Jones says, clapping him on the shoulder. "All the way across the factory, and we still heard it. We thought you were dead for sure."

Steve, largely silent for this reunion, makes a faint, gutted noise, and Bucky is abruptly reminded of how _tired_ he is. He smells like sweat, fear and piss, plus whatever chemicals Zola shot into him last, and he hasn't eaten in at least a day. Probably longer. They've made good time, the burning factory no more than an orange smudge above the treetops, but Bucky's hardly the worst injured, and he's still staggering against Steve.

"We're making camp here," Steve says, his voice soft but his tone unyielding. "Give the men time to rest." His eyes are on Bucky as he says it. Bucky knows he should protest, claim his readiness and willingness, and he would if he were back home—but his eyes sting from the smoke and tears, and his ears are ringing from battle, and he has nothing left to give. He nods and turns to the others.

"Guess we're in charge," he says, and just like that they're shouting orders in three different languages that all boil down to the same thing: _Halt for the night. Set up a perimeter. Stow the vehicles. Take lots for watch_. Steve moves around and between, using his passable Italian and atrocious French to ask for names and ranks, for units, for ID numbers, for anything and everything, and writes it all down in a little notebook scattered with doodles. He asks for the ones who died or went missing as well. Hundreds of eyes follow him, that night, and Bucky sees his light reflected in their eyes, and he turns away, ashamed at his jealousy.

By the end he's slumped against a tree, panting like a blown horse and trembling under the weight of his headache. He thought no one saw him, but he feels Steve come up behind him, feels his hand press hot against his back, and it's jarring, because Steve's hands have always, _always_ been cold, to the point where his fingers turned white in winter. Buck's skin crawls even as it tingles in anticipation.

"You should sit down before you fall down," Steve says, handing him a canteen.

Bucky's mouth twists. "Don't... think I can," he says.

"Then let me help," Steve replies, and it's as much a wrench as the rest of it, having _Steve_ help _him_ after a fight, but Bucky locked his knees to keep himself upright, and unlocking them will mean an undignified collapse. Steve takes his arm and lowers him gently to the ground. Bucky sighs, leans sideways against the tree, and opens the canteen. The water tastes like metal and iodine, but it's the best-tasting water he can ever remember drinking. His eyes slip shut, and the last thing he’s aware of are Steve's arms coming up around him, banishing the November chill.

It's dawn when he wakes. He's alone, and a thin layer of mist hovers over the ground. The camp is just starting to stir. Bucky pushes himself upright, ignoring the plaintive growling of his stomach, and goes to find Steve. He finds Dernier instead, in the company of an Oriental GI named Jim Morita. They're thick as thieves, picking apart one of the HYDRA weapons they liberated from the factory.

Bucky shakes Morita's hand, and the anger he feels inside the man is overwhelming. "It's not the first time I've been interned," he explains. "The first time was by my own country."

"Japan?" Bucky asks before he thinks.

" _California_ ," Morita snaps. "I'm Sansei, for Chrissakes, my parents were born on U.S. soil."

Stunned to silence, Bucky drops the conversation and introduces Morita to the rest of the gang. Turns out he's a whiz mechanic, and Steve asks him for a run-down of the vehicles they've captured.

Dugan side-eyes Bucky. "Steve, huh."

Bucky looks away. "Yeah."

Dugan snorts, and Bucky punches him on the arm, and shortly after they set out for HQ's last known location.

They set a limping, lead-footed pace, hampered by their wounded and their limited fuel reserves. Bucky watches Steve make the calculations for the trucks in his head. He'd have had to use paper and pencil, before. Bucky adds it to the ever-growing list of things that have changed.

He'd thought Steve was a hallucination. He's starting to wonder if maybe he wasn't right the first time. It doesn't seem real: sickly, asthmatic Steve, slow at math, quick to fight and always on the losing end of a punch, is now taller than Bucky and making leaps he can't follow.

He hefts his gun and marches at Steve's side as he leads them to salvation.


	4. Chapter 4

Debriefing is an exercise in willpower for everyone.

The camp is quiet, the initial furor of their arrival long settled into the tedium of paperwork and medical checks. Bucky doesn't envy the CO the bureaucratic nightmare ahead of him; Steve's meeting with him now, probably so he can chew Captain America a new one where the men won't see.

Bucky doesn't know why he bothers. The men already know the drill: Cap disobeyed orders to rescue them, and while he won't be publicly reprimanded, he'll be told in no uncertain terms just how close to the line he toed.

He wonders if any of the condolence letters were sent.

The tent flap opens, and Dugan walks out, looking more haggard than usual. He claps Bucky on the shoulder. "Knock 'em dead," he says, and Bucky wonders what he means until he steps into the tent and sees the woman inside.

He's speechless for a moment. He's seen Agent Carter before, of course; the SSR started shadowing the 107th as soon as intelligence caught wind of a HYDRA facility in northern Italy. This, however, is the first time he's seen her up close, and this is the first time he's seen her with the memory of she and Steve throwing sparks at each other fresh in his mind.

She stands at his entrance. "Is this how you normally address your superior officers, Sergeant Barnes?" she asks in a crisp English accent.

He straightens and snaps a salute on reflex. "Apologies, ma'am," he says. "There's been a lot to take in, the past couple days."

"I can only imagine," Agent Carter replies. "Please, have a seat."

He does, his knee jiggling with nerves as she goes over his file. "I understand this may be difficult for you, Sergeant," she says, drawing up a blank page and a pen, "but I need you to tell me exactly what you underwent at Doctor Zola's hands."

"No." It's out before Bucky has the chance to bite it back.

"No?" She looks nonplussed, and Bucky stifles his flare of anger. _It's not her fault. She can't know_.

"No, _ma'am_. I'll tell you whatever else you want about that shithole—pardon my language—but I won't say a damn thing about that."

A terrible compassion overtakes Margaret Carter's heart at his words, though her face doesn't change. Bucky finds himself unable to meet her eye. "I see," she says, and the clear, golden surface of her spirit darkens. "We all have our unpleasant histories, Sergeant Barnes," she tells him. "I regret to say I must ask you to reveal yours, because if you don't I'm obliged to order you to."

Bucky fights back a sneer. "Is the torture of prisoners relevant, now, to SSR affairs?"

Her answer is blunt. "In this case, yes. You know of the serum which Dr. Erskine used to treat Captain Rogers?"

Bucky nods, licking his lips. "I've heard of it."

"We have reason to believe that Dr. Arnim Zola was working on a counterpart to that serum. If you were a subject, we need to know what he did, so we can try to estimate how close he is to achieving that goal."

Bucky stares at his lap. "Well, I guess that answers a few things," he mutters.

"I'm afraid I didn't catch that."

He looks up and meets her gaze. He can't tell her the truth, but he can tell her what she needs to know. "He strapped me to a table," he begins, and Carter's pen scratches across the page. "He injected me with stuff. I don't know what. It burned, though. There was an emitter overhead. He never got around to using it, so I don't know what it did or how important it was. He. He c-cut me, to see how long it took me to heal. If it was some kind of super-soldier serum I don't think he got very far," he says. "I don't feel any different than before." He swallows. "Every now and then he'd take a blood sample, but he never looked pleased. He threatened to, to kill the men if I didn't cooperate. All I could do was lay there." He's hunched in his chair, feeling small and hating it. "None of the others he took lived. I'd say Steve got me out just in time."

Agent Carter's emotions are a tangle of relief and stifled disappointment, but her expression is perfectly neutral. Bucky is glad for the courtesy, ineffective as it is. He wishes he could tell her more, wishes he could say that if a super-soldier serum was what HYDRA wanted, they may well have gotten it from him. But that would mean telling her why he is important, and that can't happen.

"I'm sure of it," she says. "Now I realize this may be the very last thing you want, at the moment, but I'm afraid you'll need to undergo a medical inspection."

Bucky smiles bitterly. "Whatever the government wants," he replies.

"Indeed. The doctors are waiting in the medical tent, Sergeant. They have been briefed on your condition. Did you want me to inform Captain Rogers as to your whereabouts?"

Bucky hates that word, _condition_. Hates how it makes him sound like an invalid. _You are_ , his mind whispers traitorously. _You know you're not right in the head, anymore_. "No," he says. "Steve's got more important things to worry about than me."

Carter's brow raises, but she doesn't comment. "I'll expect you here tomorrow, to finish debriefing," she says, then accepts his salute and lets him go.

He glares at the medical tent from across the encampment. He's not a coward. But the thought of needles, of hospital beds and the smell of antiseptic, is making him queasy. He rolls his shoulders and walks toward the tent. The quicker he reports in, the quicker he can be discharged.

He starts sweating as soon as he lifts the flap. The smell of rubbing alcohol and iodine permeates everything, and the background reek of mud and blood don't help. He swallows past the knot in his throat and reports to the head nurse on duty. She bids him stay put and disappears.

The tent is arranged with the cluttered efficiency of all field installations. Boxes of supplies are packed under each cot, and form the tables that bear the patients' effects. There are more patients than the last time he was here, but there are no screams or guns or science fiction torture devices. He reins back his instinct to run. He looks to the nearest bed. It's empty, crisply-made, with razor-sharp hospital corners and sheets drawn so tight he half-wishes he had a quarter to bounce off them. There's not a strap or restraint in sight.

"Sergeant Barnes," a voice says, and the doctor appears from around the corner, clipboard in hand and a gleaming stethoscope around his neck. Bucky starts, taking his hands out of his pockets.

"Yeah," he says, his heart beating apace. "That's me."

"Follow me."

The examination room is on the other side of the surgery from the recovery ward. Bucky supposes it makes sense, from a tactical standpoint—examine the patient, operate on the patient, dump the patient in a bed, all in a neat row—but passing the polished steel and disinfectant stench of the OR sends his pulse into the stratosphere. _You're not there anymore_ , he tells himself over and over, but the longer he stays in this tent the harder it becomes to fight back the urge to recite his information.

The doctor is quick about it. That's the only mercy. Bucky takes off his shirts, and the doc starts cataloging the needle marks and scalpel cuts, the livid red marks on his wrists and the round, perfect cigarette burns on his stomach. He checks Bucky's lungs and heartbeat ("It's elevated—" "Don't worry, it's not normal."), his pupillary response, his reflexes, his range of motion. Nothing wrong with me, Doc, I'm swell, I'm right as rain—

Then he goes to draw blood.

Bucky snaps the needle and is on the other side of the room before the doctor can blink. He sees that it's broad daylight, and he's in the medical tent behind friendly lines, but he is cold, and one medical facility is very much like another. The doctor looks annoyed; Bucky watches him warily.

"Orderlies!"

Three tall, strapping men come in, the sleeves of their olive drabs rolled up over their muscular forearms, and Bucky swallows. He can feel the ragged edges of his spirit pulsing beneath his skin. He has little enough power left, but even without it he could seriously injure these men. _Snap out of it_ , he says to himself, but their hands are reaching for him and it's too late.

Panic sinks its teeth into him. "No—" He struggles, his teeth bared, heels scraping over the planks laid down over the mud. They wrestle him to the floor, throwing their weight down on him, and he whimpers in fear.

 _Don't hurt anyone don't hurt anyone they'll shoot them all_ —

"Shit, get him down!"

"No injections, I need a clean sample!"

Tears are hot in his eyes, his breath sharp in his throat. He fights dirty, every way he knows short of drawing blood, but he's hampered by the guns aimed at his friends and he doesn't want to, _God, why can't they just let him go_ —

"What's going on, here?"

Bucky sags in the orderlies' grip, slamming back to the present. Steve.

"It's nothing, just a patient being uncooperative—"

"I heard shouting. If you've got a patient that dead-set against it, why are you—Bucky?"

" _Sir_ , please. This is a hospital, I need you to—"

"No, that's my friend. What the _hell_ is going on?"

"It's just shell-shock, he'll get over it in time—"

"It's not 'just shell-shock'!" Bucky feels warm hands grip his arms and lift him from the floor. "He was experimented on, and _this_ is how you treat him?"

"I—"

"What's the name of your superior officer?"

"What?"

"I asked you a question, Major."

"Colonel Hicks, but—"

"Does Colonel Hicks advise that the treatment of combat stressed soldiers include holding them down when they clearly indicate their discomfort with the procedure?"

"He was obstructing my treatment of him. It was for his own good."

There is a silence, and Bucky feels his heart finally start to settle. He looks up. Steve is staring the doctor down, a fake captain in a battered tin helmet going against the golden oak leaf of a major, and any other time Bucky’d be laughing—but not now. Not when blood-tinged memories are clawing at the fringes of his mind. He edges himself into Steve's shadow and hates himself for it.

"This is not for his own good," Steve is saying, his voice low and deadly. "This is the opposite of good. What did you need done so badly that you sent him into a panic attack?"

Bucky winces.

"I needed a blood sample."

"A blood sample."

"Yes, sir."

"Did you ask him his opinion on that?"

"N—"

"Don't answer that. Obviously you didn't, or you would've known that he spent the past month getting blood taken from him against his will. He was panicking, and you went and called the orderlies on him!"

"Mr. Rogers," the doctor says, pulling himself upright, "This is the Army, and if he can't handle the stresses of war then maybe—"

"Captain," Steve says. "You may address me as _Captain_ Rogers."

The man stares at him, takes in the USO costume under his leathers. "Ah..."

This is going nowhere good. Bucky deems it past time to step in. "Steve." His voice is reedy. "Drop it."

"No, I'm not gonna drop it, Bucky, this man is a Goddamn idiot!"

Bucky shoulders past Steve, flushing with embarrassment and anger. "Take your stupid sample," he says, thrusting out his arm.

The doctor looks between him and Steve.

"Bucky—"

"Can it, Steve. You gonna take the sample, or not?"

The doctor moves slowly, as though wary of startling either of them. Bucky stays standing, and Steve hovers. His presence is soothing, for all that Bucky doesn't want to admit it. _He_ is Steve's guardian angel, not the other way around; he shouldn't need his charge to protect him like this. Still, his fingers dig deep into Steve's forearm when he feels the needle slide in, and he squeezes his eyes shut against the sick, cold sensation of blood leaving his veins.

"Buck—"

"Shut up, Steve, or I swear to God I will _shut_ you up."

Steve shuts up, and the doctor finishes the vial. Bucky pulls away before he can properly bandage the site. "Do you need any more?"

The doctor glances to Steve. "No, not for now."

"Good." He turns on his heel, snags his shirts, and marches out of the tent. The sun is out, and Bucky breathes deep the wider, cleaner air of the camp. It's hardly fresh, scented as it is with exhaust, mud, and a faint whiff of the latrines, but it's several orders of magnitude better than the stench of sterility and bad memories. He pulls his shirts over his head and lets out a shaky sigh.

"Bucky," Steve says, stepping out behind him, and Bucky tenses all over again.

" _What_ , Steve."

Steve's hesitation is heavy, anticipatory. "Just wanted to see how you were doing," he says.

Bucky barks a laugh. "I'm swell, Stevie, I'm right as rain." He is suddenly, acutely aware of the hot trickle of blood curling around his forearm.

He won't look at Steve's face, but he can sense Steve's disbelief, and his awkwardness is palpable. He's never seen Bucky like this, never seen him at his worst. Bucky's worst has always been Steve's, too. "Don't," he says. "Don't you lie to me, Bucky. You're _not_ swell."

Rather than answer, Bucky turns and stalks across the field to the barracks tent. He hears the slipping squelch of Steve's footsteps as he chases after him, and a hand comes up around his elbow. "Goddamn it, Bucky—"

" _Don't fucking touch me_ ," Bucky hisses, spinning and jerking his arm free. He freezes at the look on Steve's face. "Shit, Steve, I—"

"No, it's alright," Steve says, staring white-faced at the smear of blood on his fingers. "I shouldn't have grabbed you like that."

The look on his face makes Bucky feel as low as the mud caked on his boots. He swallows, coming to a decision. "You're right, Steve," he says quietly, taking out the rough scrap of cloth he's been using as a handkerchief and offering it to him. "I'm not swell. I'm fucked in the head, but I don't want to talk about it, and I don't want to think about it, and if I have to do either I definitely don't want to do it out in the open." His mouth twists. "Or to a doctor."

Steve nods, biting his lip. "I should—let me just take a look at your elbow," he says.

Bucky looks down, to where the opened vein is soaking into his sleeve. He shrugs. "It's already clotting."

"My mother would be rolling in her grave if she heard you saying that, James Barnes," Steve says with a faint smile. He pulls out his own handkerchief. "Get over here before you bleed out."

Bucky rolls his eyes and rolls up his sleeve. Steve folds the hanky and presses it against the needle mark, tying it down with Bucky's dirty scrap and bending his elbow to keep pressure on it. "You know, I've got a private tent," he says, looking up. "Perks of being Captain America. They haven't gotten around to taking it away, yet, so if... you wanted to talk."

Bucky glances toward the barracks tent. There will be a dozen other men in there, and nowhere to be private. Bucky can feel the tremors spreading through his limbs; he doesn't want to be where anyone can see him when they surface. "Your tent's fine," he says, trying not to think about what that would have meant in his previous life. It was never his own apartment he took his dates to, not with Steve there, and definitely not with his mother and sisters—

Oh God, his sisters. Bucky staggers beneath a wave of homesickness so immediate it leaves him breathless.

"Bucky?" Steve's at his side, carefully not touching anywhere, and Bucky grabs his forearm.

"Have you heard anything from the runts?" he asks.

Steve's brow scrunches sadly. "Not since I came over," he says, "and the last letter was two months ago."

Bucky ducks his head. "God I wish I—" He cuts himself off. He doesn't have the _right_ to wish that. Twenty men won't be going home because of him. He scrubs his hands over his face, forcing back the scream that wants to spill out. "C'mon, Rogers, where's that tent you promised me?"

"Yeah," Steve says softly. "It's right over here."

He leads him across the parade ground to the USO pavilion, standing silent and empty now that its star went and made himself a war hero. Bucky wonders how that works. He's seen the newsreels, made fun of Captain America and shut the guys up when the teasing got mean, but putting _Steve_ in that campy costume, _Steve_ up there on stage, making a speech and putting on a show for the crowds—it just won't come, even though hard proof is walking right beside him. They slip into the warren of tents and sheds behind the stage.

"Steve? Oh my God, Steve! He's back, Clara, he's back! Go tell Marty, Cap's back!"

Bucky fades into the background as a swarm of dames musters from the wings, all fussing and carrying on over Steve's tattered appearance. They're lookers, all of them, made-up to a tee despite their plain, serviceable clothes, and what’s more absurd is that Steve is at his ease among them, earnest and serious, and very glad to be alive, yes, ma'am. One of them comes up to him with a scowl on her face, and in a startling burst of familiarity Steve blushes and stutters, and takes off his dirt- and sweat-streaked helmet. "I'm sorry, Emma," he says. "I didn't mean to put you out."

"You're a dummy, Steve Rogers, if you think I care about the helmet," she says, and throws her arms around him. "I'm just glad you're alright."

Finally one of them notices Bucky. "Who's this?" she asks, taking in his scruffy, unwashed appearance.

Steve's smile is like sunshine through a break in the clouds. "This is my best friend, Bucky," he says, motioning him forward.

"Oh, I _knew_ you were too good to be true," one of them announces. "A looker _and_ a gentleman? Had to be a catch."

One of her friends shushes her. Bucky feels the hot prickle of a blush creep over his face. Steve frowns. "I don't..."

"She thinks we're playing for the other team," Bucky says.

Steve turns red as a tomato. "I—oh."

Bucky steps up. "Don't worry, ladies, he's not my girl back home. But if any one of you was willing—"

"Bucky, shut _up_ ," Steve hisses, dragging him away from the sea of giggles and rolling eyes.

He drops the act as soon as they're out of earshot, tucking his hands in his pockets and following in Steve's wake. Steve glances back at him every now and then, a shy little smile on his face Bucky doesn't have the heart to parse out, and leads him into, as far as tents are concerned, a palace. He whistles.

"You could fit the Joint Chiefs in here," he says. "And all for you. Damn, Stevie, you done good."

"It's not just me," Steve says, shrugging awkwardly. "It's the dressing room, too." he waves to the costume racks and dressers hemming in the bed.

Bucky snorts. "Like that matters, when you're on the road. You have to bunk with the costumes? What a fucking tragedy. You could have had Hairy Larry scratching his ass at you every morning."

Steve grins. "Sounds like you're talking from personal experience, there, Buck."

"Nah, I was so valuable to the war effort they gave me Jerk-off Jackso—" He stops short, winded. It's been a year since Jackson died, right in the middle of giving him shit about pussyfooting around. He swallows. "Sorry," he says to Steve. "H-he—I just, for a minute I forgot..."

Steve's face is twisted in sympathy, but Bucky can tell he doesn't really _understand_. He's still got that shiny, hopeful look all the new privates wear. Steve knows death, everyone from Brooklyn's slums does, but he's never known _war_. Bucky is suddenly, exquisitely furious at Erskine for putting Bucky in a position where he has to watch that bright innocence tarnish in the mud. His mandate is unchanged: he must look after Steven Grant Rogers. But how can a man, even an angel, look after anyone in the field!

Steve comes up to him, smelling of gunfire and a thirty-five mile road march and _not himself_ , and lays a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "Buck," he says. "God, I'm sorry."

Bucky sways backwards, forcing a wobbly smile on his face. "M'okay, Stevie, just a little tired, been a long war an' all—" Steve cuts him off with a crushing hug.

"Shut up, Bucky," he says. "You're an idiot. Just shut up."

Bucky can't help the way his breath shudders out of him, sounding pathetic and shattered, and he can't keep his arms from coming up around Steve like he's the last life raft on a sinking ship. Steve feels like a furnace, feels like a statue come to life. Bucky tucks his face into his broad shoulder and lets the tears fall. Relief, shame, gut-wrenching grief, fear—they all bleed out of him like a lanced infection. Steve's grip is so tight it borders the edge of pain; Bucky grabs fistfuls of his coat to try and ground himself. Steve doesn't say anything, just rubs Bucky's back, and Bucky's sobs run away from him. Steve should not be comforting him. _He_ is the one who patches hurts, who watches over the two of them. Without that, what is he? _What is he?_

What is an angel without a purpose? Steve runs his hand over Bucky's bowed back, and for the first time since Steve pulled him off that table he's convinced he's not hallucinating.

***

He should never have mentioned Agent Carter.

Steve lights up like Christmas, and his smile is—Bucky frowns, because that smile is _his_. "Peggy," Steve says. It comes out like a prayer. "She's, oh man, Bucky, she's incredible. She's something."

He babbles for a while about _Agent Carter_ and her sharpshooting, about the way she throws a punch, the whip-crack of her wit. Bucky looks down at his hands, his knuckles scarred from a lifetime of back-alley scuffles and his palms callused from holding a rifle, and he makes jokes about Mr. Carter until Steve flushes pink and pushes him off his camp stool. He laughs, but it feels hollow.

He's felt this hot, sweet fizzing in Steve's chest before, had felt it every time Steve looked at him. Now it's aimed at Peggy Carter, and Bucky feels the cold seeping in.

***

Peggy Carter is—

Well, Bucky doesn't quite know what to make of her. He's no stranger to women who speak their mind; Mrs. Rogers was one to take the cake, and angels fight regardless of how they align themselves. But women aren't supposed to look at Steve, let alone look at Steve and _see_ him.

Peggy does both. She understands him in a way that only his mother and Bucky have been able to, and Bucky isn't sure he likes it.

He likes the way Steve looks back even less.

They're all shipped off to England a week after Captain America springs them from the jaws of death, ostensibly for a full debriefing, but really it's just to get Steve an actual uniform. He supposes it's also to give them time to get their heads back on straight, but the cynical part of Bucky thinks that's less important to the brass.

Steve wasn't just rescuing prisoners when he stormed HYDRA's base, and Peggy's with him _all the time_ , taking down the intel he collected and showing it to the Colonel. MI6 is _very_ interested, and _very_ worried, about the HYDRA bases springing up all across the map like tulips in springtime, and it turns out she's something of a liaison.

Bucky hears through the grapevine that Colonel Philips has an idea to send an elite team after them. Bucky catches wind of it from Steve, who heard it through Peggy, and it gets him thinking. He turns to his former cellmates for their opinions.

They're all open to the idea. Bucky can't say he's surprised. He saw Dernier choreograph a detonation to "La Marseillaise" to win a bet against a bold-talking Englishman. He watched Morita build a radio from the scrap in Howard Stark's lab, and he's learned more than a few things about knife work from Falsworth. He caught Jones cheating at poker against the Georgia boys that challenged him to a hand. He won all their cigarettes, and then beat them again for good measure. Dugan—Dugan he already knows. He knows that if there's a fight Dugan will run straight toward it with a grin and a shotgun, and he'll laugh as he does. They're terrifyingly good soldiers, all of them, and they all have a bone to pick with HYDRA. Steve asks him if they'd be willing to follow him. Bucky snorts and says, "They're idiots. You tell 'em to jump, they'll pull off to the nearest cliff and ask how high."

But that still leaves Peggy, and Bucky knows from the happy, bright look in Steve's eyes that she's not going away. He feels himself shrink inward around the ache in his chest. He wants to hate her, this interloper cutting between him and Steve, but Peggy is quite unimpressed by his bravado, and he can't help but admire her for it. They're still in England when he gets his first chance to talk to her alone, just after they've been granted a day's reprieve before Command sends them back to the meat grinder of Europe.

"Steve's not a guy you can have a fling with and toss back," he says. They're in an empty corridor in the British branch of the SSR. He's slumped against the opposite wall, lying in wait, his eyes piercing in the dark, and Peggy is standing ramrod straight, watching him. He can see the wariness in her stance, her unease at being caught alone in a corridor by an untested man. "He doesn't keep his heart tucked safe. Just..." He looks away. "Don't break it, alright?"

The look she gives him is entirely too perceptive. "The way he broke yours, you mean?"

Bucky starts. "What—! Does everyone in this Goddamn war think that about us? Jesus Christ!"

"Is it untrue?"

He can't meet her gaze. The lie sits on his tongue, _Yeah, it's untrue, never more than brothers, what's wrong with people_ —but he can't make himself say it. Not here. Not to this woman. She should know what she's getting into.

And besides, lying is a sin.

She lays a hand on his arm, where he has it folded protectively against his chest. "He loves you, Barnes," she says. "It's in his eyes whenever he looks at you. But you didn't step up, and I'm not so noble as to pretend to wish he didn't look at me for your sake. I'm sorry."

He nods, his throat aching. "You make him happy, Agent Carter," he says. "He deserves to be happy." _I couldn't do it for him_.

He feels her heart twinge for him, and pity is the last thing he wants. He brushes past her and walks down the hall, hands in his pockets.

"Barnes," she calls after him. He half-turns. "If that was meant to be one of those quaint 'hurt-him-and-I-hurt-you' threats, it was rubbish."

He huffs a laugh, scuffing his shoes on the bare concrete. "Nah," he says, irony thick in his voice. "Never was any good at those."

Her smile is small, understanding. "I'm glad you made an exception, then."

She turns up later, at the bar where the crew is coming together. Steve is giving her bedroom eyes, but he doesn't say a word, the putz—so Bucky flirts with her for him, and tries not to mind. Tries not to feel like a useless, pining fool, tries to straighten up his feelings for his best friend, his _charge_ , but he's not especially surprised when it doesn't work.

Steve's eyes are uncertain after she leaves, and Bucky smiles for him, fronting for all he's worth.

"I'm turning into you," he says. "It's a horrible dream."

"Don't take it so hard," Steve replies, relief slipping through his tone. He claps him on the shoulder. "Maybe she's got a friend."

***

Bucky's not sure who calls them the Howling Commandos first. It could be that time they stumble back to barracks, filthy drunk (except for Steve, the poor bastard), singing obnoxious songs at obnoxious volumes at an obnoxious hour. It could also be that time they startle their French allies by bum-rushing the enemy line, whooping and howling like mad things and escaping without a scratch.

However it happens, they're dubbed holy terrors and they proceed to wipe HYDRA off the map, one installation at a time.

There are the good times, like when their forward base is set up near an abandoned potato field in Czechoslovakia, and in an effort to extend rations the KP staff serves everyone a week-long culinary exploration of the spud.

"Never thought I'd say this," Steve says, "but I'm starting to miss Spam."

Morita scoffs. "An Irish boy not likin' his potatoes? Something's wrong with this picture."

"Is minic a bhris béal duine a shrón," Steve flips back.

Morita blinks at him. "What?"

"'It's often a man's mouth breaks his nose,'" Bucky answers. "He learned that one first-hand. Your accent's still shitty, by the way."

"That's 'cause I learned it from you."

Morita nearly falls off his stump laughing.

Dugan hawks a spitwad into the trees. "How many languages you speak, Barnes?"

Bucky thinks a moment. "Aside from English I've got Italian, French, German, Hebrew, a couple dialects of the Yiddish found around Brooklyn, Irish, odds and ends of Norwegian, Polish, Romanian and Arabic. Oh, and Church Latin, but that doesn't count." He takes a sip of his coffee. "It's nothing like Classical Latin at all," he says to their puzzled looks.

"I see why they made you Captain America and not him," Falsworth says to Steve. "How many languages do you speak, again?"

"More than you," Steve replies, peering suspiciously into his mug. "Still not convinced 'lorry' is actually English."

"That's because you wouldn't know proper English if is smacked you in the face."

"I heard different from you mother, last night," Bucky says through a mouthful of potatoes.

Falsworth scowls at him. "I'm only refraining from hitting you, Barnes, because my mother, rest her soul, would box my ears for it."

"Thanks be to Mrs. Lady Falsworth."

Falsworth shudders. "Bloody Americans." He ostentatiously gives Bucky the cold shoulder, and Bucky smirks at him the entire rest of the night.

There are bad times, too, enough to keep them all in nightmares.

"What should we do?" Jones asks. It's a stupid question, really, and he knows it. No one meets his gaze except Steve.

"We do what we have to," he says. He turns to their prisoner where he sits, tied to a chair.

"Wait." Bucky holds out a hand to stop him. He feels a steady calm settle over his mind, terrible and sure. "I'll do it. You guys wait outside."

"Bucky—"

"Barnes, are you quite sure—"

"Together or not at—"

"Shut up, all of you." Bucky glares at them one by one. "Wait outside."

One by one they file out, even Steve, but not before he pins Bucky with a measuring stare.

Bucky gives a hard smile in reply. "I'll holler if things get sticky."

"Does he ever stop?" Morita mutters, wide-eyed and pale.

Bucky shuts the door in their faces. They're in a barn in Poland. The sickly-sweet stench of rotting hay fills the air, and the German soldier's eyes are wide with fear.

Bucky knows. He knows the soldier's name is Karl Daecher. He knows that Karl has two younger brothers in the Hitler Youth, and that his hand shook so badly when shooting a Polish Gypsy that he had had to shoot three more times before the man stopped twitching.

He knows Leutnant Daecher's fracture points. He can see them as clear as he can see the fine, Aryan features that brought him such pride.

It is a short interrogation.

He finds Steve awake that evening, staring into the campfire. He sees Bucky watching him. "I didn't think it would be so hard," he says softly. Bucky wriggles out of his bedroll and sits down beside him.

"It's war," he says. "We do what we have to to survive."

"I know. It's just—sometimes it feels like we're losing parts of ourselves, Buck. Parts of our humanity." He huffs a laugh. "Guess I'm farther down that road than the rest of you." His eyes, lit from below by the fire, seem to glow. "I hate that you had to do that. That it's you, every time. Every time, I—" He swallows and closes his eyes. "I worry I'm losing a little more of you, too."

Bucky bows his head. There's nothing to say.

They stare into the embers until it's Dernier's watch. If they pull their bedrolls closer together that night, no one cares. They all saw how white Steve got, listening to the screams inside the barn. They saw Bucky's blank, dead eyes when he came out, information in hand. They don't begrudge them this.

It's war. It's Hell, because that's what war is. Falsworth keeps a notebook with a list of the men he's killed. He writes down names if he can, but mostly it's just rows of tally marks, no space for a name, because there's no space between the bullets for introductions. Dernier sings Edith Piaf in the evenings, and twists the wedding band on his finger. Jones and Bucky tell jokes, the darker the better, and get into punning contests that dance between languages. Jones actually beats him one night, and Bucky calls him a dark horse and giggles until Dernier throws his dirty socks at him.

He sees Steve and Morita talking one night, hushed and quiet at the edge of camp. They're half in shadow, Morita with a pinched look on his face, and Steve showing the tells that mean he's trying to hold back his anger. Bucky ignores them as best he can, but he can't turn off his ears.

_The kids thought we were going on vacation. We didn't have the heart to tell them otherwise. S'pose it was better than watching them get spat on back home._

_Why didn't anyone protest?_

_We were scared. Bastards had us running scared._

Bucky turns to Dernier, loudly demanding he teach him the lyrics to "La Vie en Rose" so he can properly woo the French girls next time they're over the border.

He gets into a fight with a fellow sergeant a few days later, when the man spits and calls Morita a "dirty chink." Steve has to pry him off the man and bodily haul him back to his tent before he calms down. There's a fire burning in Steve's eyes, too, Bucky sees it, and Bucky feels how much Steve resents the expectations the uniform place on him. Bucky also feels how viciously glad he is that Bucky pays no mind to such restraints.

Morita comes in a little while later. "I don't get it," he says. "You call me a slant all the time. What's different about this?"

"The difference is I can call you that shit 'cause you know I don't mean it," Bucky says, scowling out the tent flap.

Morita crosses his arms. "How about you don't at all. Just for shits and grins."

Bucky glances to him, suddenly wary.

Morita narrows his eyes. "You're kind of an asshole, Barnes, you know that? You think you're better than that sergeant because you talk to me and shake my hand, but you still think the way he does. You just hide it better."

"I..." Bucky stares, dumbfounded.

"Guess the real question is whether you wanna stay an asshole or not. You're a damn good sniper, and I've never seen a CO and NCOIC work so good together. That's not something you break up in the middle of a war, so how about we make a deal? You don't make any more Jap jokes, and I don't take this up with the Captain. Deal?" He sticks out his hand.

Bucky takes it. "Deal."

He spends that evening thinking long and hard about himself. Dugan makes fun of him for it.

They move south through Allied-held Italy and hitch a ride on a troop transport to Athens. The next time he sees Peggy it's at an outpost on some Greek island, overlooking the bluest water Bucky's ever seen. He asks if he can have a photograph of her. She raises her brow, but when he explains why, she softens and hands him the one on her SSR file. He gives it to Steve later that day.

"You know, to keep your girl around," he says, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away.

"Thanks, Buck," is all Steve can manage. He pastes it on the inside of his compass. It's a stupid place to put it, Bucky thinks; it makes it damn near impossible to use the sight line. He sees Steve pulling it out every now and then to look at it, though, and he thinks maybe azimuths are less important than he wishes they were.

Dugan takes him out drinking that night. They don't say much, except late, when they're both reeling. "Y'done right by them," Dugan says, clapping him on the back. "Maybe this means you can find a girl'a your own."

Bucky traces the grain of the bartop with a finger. "Don' want one. Want S-steve."

"Buddy, I think you're shit outta luck."

Bucky lays his head down on the bar. "Yeah. Yeah, 'm gettin' that."

They head out to eliminate a HYRDA munitions factory the next morning. It's outside of Lamia, on the mainland, so they hire a local boat to get them to the rendezvous point. Bucky trades parables with the captain and tries to ignore how golden Steve looks in the Mediterranean sunlight.

***

He fights for glorious months by Steve's side and in the company of heroes, and it is the very heart of his warrior's soul, standing watch over the charge he loves too much.

But then—

He suffers the worst fate any angel can imagine: he falls. His wings are broken; his power locked away. He cannot save himself. He falls, and Zola's words come true: no one comes. He cannot escape. He is forgotten.

Then the echo of his charge vanishes, and he forgets, as well.

***

They take the shattered remains of his arm and put cold metal in its place. Horror spills through him as Zola looks benevolently on.

They strap him down between crude banks of machinery, the smell of ozone sharp in the air, and electricity rips through his mind until all that remains of his memories are swirling fragments like embers from a lightning-struck tree.

They take his blood against his will, and they try to bind him with it. It is not enough. He wakes screaming and angry, screaming and terrified, screaming and full of hate. He kills the scientists and the guards who come to beat him back. They wrestle him into a cryo chamber, and he burns his hands against frozen steel as claustrophobia and ice choke him.

They call in a cadaverous, bald-headed man, nameless and ground sharp as a blade. Bane-craft and ill-will ride sharp spurs into his shoulders. He lays icy, tobacco-stained fingers on Bucky's skin, drawing sigils upon his flesh in his own blood, and hums sustained notes that set his teeth on edge. It goes on for hours without stop, until he finds the one that sends Bucky's body arching up against the restraints. Gooseflesh rises on his skin, the whole of his body resonating back against that hummed note. The man smiles a bone-white grin.

"I un-Name you," he says. "You are not as you were. You are the chill touch of death. You are the secret in darkness. You are the Winter Soldier."

His wordless shout of denial buckles beneath the implacability of the man's words, and consciousness is ripped away from him.

He wakes with frost on his breath. He completes the mission, and he goes to sleep with blood on his teeth.

He feels nothing.

***

Time passes. The Cold War rises with the wall in Berlin.

***

It is 1951. Tensions spike in Korea; the Cold War runs hot. Peace talks begin in Panmunjom. The initial outlook is promising—commentators predict a satisfactory agreement within six months.

The aide to a top official is found dead in his home, his head sawed off with surgical precision and placed on his stomach. There is no trace of the killer, and the only lead is the bullet they recover. It's a Soviet round, unrifled.

The official was the strongest voice pressing for peace. Now, he is indecisive, nervous. The peace talks limp on for two more years.

***

It is 1957. A low-level NATO official begins looking too closely in places he shouldn't. He has no close friends, no living relatives. His quarterly progress reports are indifferent at best. No one misses him when he is gone.

***

It is 1963. A young, vital president steps foot in Dallas for the last time. He is beloved of his people. They cheer as he drives by in an open convertible. A man is charged with his assassination, but questions remain.

***

It is 1973. The Cold War goes hot once more in Israel, on the Day of Atonement. Forces on all sides tell of a man, dark and faceless, with the shadow of wings over his shoulders. They say he was an angel of God come again to take the firstborn of the unbelievers. "He killed as easy as breathing," they tell their superiors.

No record is found of this man. His investigation is closed and forgotten.

***

It is 1975. Pol Pot marches into Phnom Penh. The men of his army say the neak ta of Kampuchea have come to cleanse the capital, that they walk with them, and that is their favor that leads them to victory. Their avatar was treated with the greatest respect, they swear, and given their finest offerings.

They are teenagers. Children. Their stories are not taken seriously.

***

It is 1980. An archbishop speaks out against poverty, against injustice, against torture and political disappearances. He urges the soldiers of his country to follow Christ before all other leaders.

He is shot while holding Mass. Hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans attend his funeral. He is made a martyr.

***

It is 1984. A Ph.D. student in biochemistry at Princeton decides for his thesis to follow in the footsteps of the legendary Abraham Erskine. His preliminary research ignites curiosity and debate. Representatives from a shadowy organization visit him; he chooses not to accept their offer.

The student is found dead in his apartment, the victim of a burglary gone wrong. Two days later, an accidental fire in his laboratory destroys his notes.

***

Time passes. The Cold War falls with the wall in Berlin.

***

It is 1991. A businessman and military contractor is taking a drive with his wife. The accident is horrifying. They leave behind a son and a company on the edge of decline. An old friend steps in to fill the gap, and Stark tech is now easy to find in all the places it shouldn't be.

***

It is 1999. American teams to take out a dissident leader in the Afghani highlands are declared MIA. They are later recovered, each with a single bullet hole to the forehead. The rounds are unrifled, Soviet-made.

***

It is 2012. The Winter Soldier is in Syria, fomenting unrest, when it happens: a shift in his personal gravity so profound he nearly drops his rifle. It settles in his heart with a tremendous, silent boom. _Something_ has awakened, and it is pulling the Winter Soldier toward it. Something he cannot deny.

He breaks mission. They send the extraction team to contain him, but he kills them and hops a freight liner to the Americas. It is a miserable journey. He hides in the cargo bay, the engine room—anywhere the security cameras can't find him—and lives off pilfered supplies. The sailors are superstitious; they say the ship is haunted.

He lands in Miami. The compulsion drags him north, and he hitches rides up the coast in the back of inattentive tractor haulers. Sometimes he steals cars, driving them a few hundred miles and dropping them the next state over. He sheds his uniform and dresses in civilian clothes he takes from clotheslines.

Fragments of images flicker at the edges of his thoughts, but don't come close; a sensation like a gathering storm drives him forward. He is running before the wind.

He ends up in New York. The flickers grow stronger, superimposing humble brick façades over the steel and glass skyscrapers, and the Winter Soldier follows the pull to a Brooklyn apartment. He peers through his scope to the man inside, and his heart stops.

He runs.

***

HYDRA operatives capture him in Newark. He's in a train station bathroom, staring at a shattered mirror. "I knew him," he whispers. Already the skin around his knuckles is pushing out shards of glass. They bring him down the D.C. facility, and the level of reconditioning they subject him to reduces him to a child. Scientists argue it would be easier just to terminate him, but the current director won't let them. "He is an asset to our cause," he says. "We are custodians of this fine creature. It isn't our place to kill him."

There's an arrogance in Alexander Pierce's humility. The Winter Soldier does not understand it, but he sees it in his eyes.

He spends the next two years on ice.

***

They wake him, hand him a file. "Eliminate Nick Fury," they tell him.

Nick Fury is a difficult target. It takes two attempts to kill him. It's a disappointing record. The Winter Soldier feels nothing but distaste for the sloppiness of it.

A man chases him across the rooftops—a stranger, but not quite. His heart stutters when he catches the man's shield. The Winter Soldier rids himself of the intrusion and disappears. His thoughts whirl. In the back of his mind, something snarls to be let free.

"Mission report?" they ask.

"Mission successful. Target eliminated. One witness, dealt with."

It is not a perfect record, but it will do. He is wiped and stored.

***

They wake him, hand him a file. "Silence Sitwell," they tell him. "Eliminate Captain America and the Black Widow."

His handlers want it done swiftly, and don't care who sees. He opts to attack them in transit. Sitwell is an easy target. His handlers will be pleased; they like messy deaths for those who talk. He anticipates swift ends for the others, as well.

He underestimates their ingenuity. He should have known better; the files were comprehensive. The Widow specializes in making her opponents underestimate her, and her cleverness is a detriment to his mission. He manages to shoot out her shoulder before the Captain intervenes. He raises his shield to the Winter Soldier's strike, and against his metal fist the vibranium tolls the fate of them all.

Words do not do Captain America justice. He moves so fast the Winter Soldier is reduced to instinct and training, and still the target gains hits on him. His heart beats apace, his muscles thrum with adrenaline. It is exhilarating. It is like flying. It drags the fight far past the Winter Soldier's projections, but the Captain is fighting a losing battle. It is clear he did not expect the Winter Soldier to strike so hard, or move so swiftly; he is on the defensive, and he is losing ground. The Winter Soldier closes, scenting death on the air, until—

"Bucky?"

Reality warps, and the thin veil between him and the snarling creature within is torn away. _You look like a Bucky_ , a small voice whispers, and the Winter S— _YOU LOOK LIKE A BUCKY_ —

"Who the hell is Bucky!"

The Widow launches a grenade. Her timing is impeccable. The Wi— _he_ dodges out of the way. There is something building beneath his skin, a vibrating, screaming thing, rumbling in a half-heard scrape against his soul. He raises his gun on the Captain, desperate for a release, but he is knocked aside from above.

 _Fool_ , his mind says inexplicably. _Always watch the heavens_.

His mind splinters away in a wash of white.

It _hurts_. He has been trained not to feel pain, but this is pain unlike any he can remember. The light forces its way from his skin, from his eyes; he stands in the middle of the street, transfixed before his target, and he emits fury and power like a splintered tesseract. He sees, as with a thousand eyes; he feels the wind through the feathers of a thousand wings, and he _feels_. Sensation crashes down upon him in a textured, scented, swirling wave. He feels the shock and incomprehension and awe in his target's heart. _No, not your target_ , a secret voice inside him says. _Your charge_. "Steve," he whispers through the wind. He turns his face up to the heavens, the weight of his memories bearing down on his mind. "Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani?" The pain increases a hundred-fold, and he screams a chorded, harmonic-laden bellow that scorches his throat. Terrified instincts surge up in him, shoving his memories back in their cage, and with a wrench he shifts away from the battlefield. He has time to see brick and metal before his eyesight burns away altogether.

And then—

The world around him vanishes into darkness and silence.

***

_"Bucky, did you see that?" A deep voice in his ear, excitement sharp on the tongue, the smell of hot dogs and cheap beer—_

_"Yeah, I saw it, couldn't miss it!" Blue skies, blue eyes, hard seats, worries about making rent shoved to the back of his mind—_

_"This is the best season they've had yet! We'll go all the way to the Series, I know we'll beat the Yankees this time—" Slender wrists, the hot pull of a sunburn, tenderness and longing—_

_"Shut up, shut up, he's stepping up to bat—"_

***

He is in an alley. He can smell the reek of garbage as though his head is buried in it. His fingertips brush against asphalt and crumbling brick, and tears wring from his sightless eyes; the metal of his arm, warmed by its hydraulics, sears the flesh of his shoulder. He scratches along the join, digging into his flesh, but the pain only increases. Phantom sensations shoot through his fingers even though the hand is long gone. He huddles in the corner, shivering. Vibrations rise from the ground, rattling his bones, and a wave of dank, musty air, scented with metal, grease, rats and piss, billows from the grate under his knees.

Every movement aches. The scratch of his uniform chafes. Pebbles cut into his skin until he cries. He opens his eyes as wide as he can, but he sees only the colorful novae of blindness; he strains to hear, but there is nothing in his ears but ringing.

His orders are in shambles, his programming sloughing off like a shed skin. Triggers and safe words boil up from the depths of his mind, slicking the surface of his thoughts. They ignite in the lingering fires of his conflagration; his mind is burning: all that he was, all that he is, catches in the flames. He wraps himself into as tight a ball as he can manage to stave off his rising terror.

He doesn't know how long he stays there. The sun is hot on his skin, and then it moves. The stone around him grows warm. He thinks perhaps he will stay here until he dies of exposure, blind and helpless as an infant.

Hours later, when the walls are losing their heat, a presence comes up to him. He skitters back, slamming into the hard edge of a Dumpster, and hisses when his bare palm slips against the pavement. The presence is the dark blue of a twilight sky, fierce, determined, but unspeakably sad. A pair of hands touch his face.

He jerks, striking out with a soldier's—an assassin's—reflexes, but the hands vanish only to reappear against his own, hot against his clammy skin. He thinks he lets out a noise; he can feel the grate of his vocal folds, though he hears nothing. Nor does he hear what the owner of those hands says in reply, if anything. Desperate for _something_ , he sniffs the air.

Sweat. Hours old, laden with testosterone and the acrid tang of fear. A man, then. He smells, too, of doubt, confusion, of wariness and hope. A hint of aftershave lingers beneath, as well as more overt scents of blood, gunshot residue and leather. He smells his own sweat on this man's clothes, and he realizes this is his target. He bows his head against a warm shoulder, trembling. He doesn't know how Captain Rogers found him, and he is torn between relief and wishing it had been anyone else. He allows him to sling his arm over his shoulder and guide him from the alley.

Tears sting his cheeks, and he is let by his... his _charge_. He leans into Captain Rogers's side despite the agonizing heat of his body. They come out of the alley into a parking lot, judging by the scents of asphalt and exhaust. He ducks his head, letting his hair shield his face. He clings to Steve, his mind drifting to touch the hearts of any who might surround him, when he feels the brush of another mind against his.

He stiffens, breaking free from the Captain's grasp. There is an alien presence, and he has been trained too well. _Who is there?_ he demands into the silence.

 _I'm Sam_ , a voice replies. _Or Sammachthiel. Whichever_.

He reaches out. What he finds is unlike Captain Rogers in every way. This mind is open, vast; it lacks the rigid physicality of a human's, but holds twice the certainty. He twitches in shock. _You are not like them._

_Neither are you._

_Have you come to kill me?_

The presence seems sad. _No. We've come to help you, Bucky._

That name sends shivers down his spine. _I won't go back._

_We won't make you. We won't even make you stay with us, if you decide to go._

He wavers. Trust does not come naturally to him, anymore. As if in reply, a deep thrum begins in his mind, a faint whisper of a song so achingly familiar the tension slackens from his limbs and he tilts his head, listening. The moment is poised in time, and a sense of peace washes over him, a sense of homecoming, of communion and quiet comfort.

Then it stops, and he returns to himself. Wild fear takes hold of him. _You want to manipulate me_ , he snarls. _Like them._

 _No, Bucky_ , the voice says. Its sadness sharpens. _That is the song of the Host._

 _I do not trust you_ , he says.

 _Stay with us as you heal_ , the voice persists. _I ask no more._

_Will I? Heal?_

_All things heal, in time._

A wave of half-remembered bitterness rolls over him. _You know better than that._

_Yeah, I do. Come with us anyway._

Captain Rogers's hand touches his shoulder, a question in his heart, but it is not meant for him. Stubborn determination filters past, and the image of a man raising his chin flashes through his mind.

_He will not let me go easily._

_You let me worry about that._

A heartbeat passes. Another. The Captain's worry is increasing, though he makes no move to hurry them along. He ignores him, letting the eddies of his mind wash apart and come together. There are barriers in his mind holding back a torrent of memory. He senses these are the last peaceful moments he will experience in a long time. He will not rush them.

A face rises from the depths, a seemingly noble face, belonging to a seemingly noble man, but who is cunning and vicious as a viper within. _Alexander Pierce_ , he snarls.

Shock ripples from the other mind. _Wait—who?_

 _He is mine_. He steps forward, guessing until the Captain's hands return to guide him. _I will go with you. But I will not stay._

_Figured as much. When you go, I will say only, go with God._

The words come to him even as he says them. _And when I return, I will say I walked in Their footsteps to your door._

 _Is that a promise?_ the voice asks.

He does not answer.

***

They take him to a facility he does not recognize. He smells mildew and concrete, and the scent of river water is heavy in his lungs. Machinery hums underfoot. They're in a dam, he decides. South of the city, on a tributary.

He shrugs off the Captain's hands. He follows by smell and the echo of their footsteps against the walls. They meet the Widow and another woman; they are calm, but deep waters hold subtle currents, and they are unsettled and afraid. He smells the Widow's blood in the air. 

They talk with the Captain and the Other. The Captain is stunned; he is angry. He feels him push them aside and turn back to him. He leads him to a room, but he refuses to enter until the Captain goes first.

There is a bed in the room. There is no smell of ozone, no chair, no restraints. There is only Captain Rogers, watching him. He sits on the bed; it is too soft, but he thinks the Captain wants him to do so. He pulls up his legs and wraps his arms around his knees. He feels the Captain's eyes on him; he can't tell him to stop, so he does his best to ignore it.

Captain Rogers is a storm of emotion. He senses devotion, giddy happiness warring with fury; he feels horror, longing for vengeance, and stomach-clenching guilt. It's dizzying. Scalding fingers brush against his hand, and he twitches away. He does not understand the pain that fills Captain Rogers's heart.

The Captain stays with him until the others return to drag him away. He is glad; the screaming emotions are giving him a headache. He tucks his head against his knees and lets himself heal.

Alexander Pierce is alive. He will not permit that to remain.

His body recovers. He runs his hands over the burn scars on his back, probes the minute blind spots in his vision. His ears ring in the higher registers. It was not the first time he has exploded in such a manner, he concludes.

There are no guards on his cell. There are no cameras. He leaves freely and easily. No one stops him, not even the Captain.

***

He scopes out a HYDRA safe house. They are plentiful, scattered through every tactically relevant city. He steals a laptop and uses it to hack SHIELD's database. Alexander Pierce's address is listed in his files, his honesty above reproach.

He plans the assassination as meticulously as he does all his missions. The SHIELD servers tell him something called Project Insight is due to launch in ten hours; he uses that as his benchmark. It's a quick deadline, but the pulse-pounding frenzy of pressure settles into a mold worn smooth. It is probable he has had to work even more quickly than this. He procures his supplies and tucks into his hide to wait.

It is 2014. Alexander Pierce, United States Secretary of Defense, is overconfident. He will be found dead in his home in eight hours' time, two bullet holes through his heart. Forensics will recover two unrifled rounds, Soviet-made.


	5. Chapter 5

He watches the news. Captain America has led a raid to expunge HYDRA operatives from SHIELD, and the Black Widow purged SHIELD's servers onto the internet. Public outcry is intense. Social media explodes, and a dozen petitions to dismantle the Insight helicarriers reach their signature quotas in a matter of hours. The foundation of the world's intelligence community is rocked; no one was beyond HYDRA's reach, and one by one the alphabet agencies step forward to make press statements.

"You're not going to put us in prison," the Widow says to the sub-committee scrambled together to deal with the onslaught. "You need us." Captain America is silent and solemn at her shoulder, his helmet tucked beneath his arm.

He flicks off the TV. His face is reflected in the screen, and he shudders.

The Smithsonian has an ongoing showcase on Captain America, a cross between a memorial and a propaganda campaign. He goes to see it. Most of it is tacky patriotism and filler, but he reads every caption about Steve Rogers and the Howling Commandos he can find. He spends hours there, staring at his face on the wall. He watches himself smile in an old newsreel, _He's my friend_ trapped on his celluloid lips and a shadow of his future caught behind his silvered eyes, and he feels the barriers in his mind crack. He leaves, bunkers down in the safe house, and lets himself fall apart. "Steve," he whispers, and it all comes tumbling back.

He spends three days in the empty apartment, dragging his mind back through the Hell it was sent into before he reclaims himself. He rises on the third day, and his eyes shine with the wrath of God. He leaves Steve Rogers in Washington and goes hunting.

***

He kills three scientists in Los Angeles. The only thing he feels is clean, pure rage.

Three more follow in Los Alamos. Five in Berlin, two in Melbourne, and no less than twelve when he circles back to D.C.

It is not enough.

***

He is not as careful as he should be. He leaves a trail of bodies across the globe: people who ordered him to kill, people who paid to experiment on him, people who tended the equipment that tormented him. Some he leaves alive—those who have repudiated their former employers and truly repent, or those who only did what they had to for as long as they had to to feed their families. These, he leaves. He sees the sincere regret in their eyes, and he is unable to strike them down.

He wonders if he is going mad. He supposes it's a drop in the sea.

He lives off HYDRA safe houses and money drops, burning identities behind him as he goes. He never stays anywhere long; Captain Rogers is behind him, following the bloody breadcrumbs, and the Winter Soldier is not yet ready to reclaim James Buchanan Barnes. There is... something else he must know before he can face either of them. Something as familiar as a word caught on the tip of the tongue. Something to do with what happened on that street in Washington, D.C.

He is different. Not all of his memories are of blood and death, and not all of the remainder are of Bucky Barnes. Some nights his dreams are washed with a tumult of voices, of intertwined darkness and light, and the soaring freedom of flight over the desert.

He backtracks through China into Russia and hitches a ride in the supply car of a medical train leaving Vladivostok. He gets lost in the crowds along the Baikal-Amur Mainline, Captain Rogers fails to pick up the scent, and the Winter Soldier vanishes into Siberia.

He finds an abandoned cabin tucked about with creaking pines and snow. He stays there two months, doing little more than sleeping and staring into the middle distance. He keeps rubbing his fingers together, as though there is something in them he should be holding.

"Ave Maria," he whispers. "Gratia plen—" He cuts off into a gasp as a memory assaults him, of a terrified victim with beads clutched in his hands. The broken bodies of his wife and children lay at the Winter Soldier's feet. The echo of their screams ring in his ears, and their blood is sticky and warm on his fingers. "—now and at the hour of our death," the man whimpers. "Amen. Oh God, please—"

The Winter Soldier throws himself back with a startled, horrified cry, and ends up dumping himself out of his chair. He huddles in the corner, his pistol pressed up against his chin and one finger on the trigger. He wants to pull—he tries, so many times, to pull the trigger and bring himself out of this Hell, but thoughts of the man who was his mission, Captain Rogers—

_Steve_

—stay his hand. He cries until his face is hot, until snot has run down his chin. _I'll have to clean the gun_ , he thinks, and like a puppet with its strings cut he collapses, sagging against the wall. The gun clatters to the floor. He feels hollow inside. Empty. But for once his mind is calm, as the ocean is calm in the wake of a storm, and he simply lets himself breathe.

A new memory rises.

_I just want to help—_

_You help too much, Bucky. Steve couldn't ask for a better friend. You're his guardian angel._

Guardian angel...

He leaves the cabin the next day.

***

It is Sam Wilson who finds him. _I'm Sam_ , his fractured mind supplies. _Or Sammachthiel. Whichever_. His mind also provides more relevant information: Sam Wilson was a staff sergeant in the Air Force as a rescue jumper, and volunteered for an experimental tech trial; he retired upon the death of his wingman, Jake Riley, and until recently worked at the VA in D.C. His mind tells him Sam Wilson knows the human heart.

Sam Wilson flies on mechanized wings, and Sam Wilson is not quite human.

Captain Rogers should have caught him, with a man like Sam Wilson at his side, but he didn't, always a half-step too late. The Winter Soldier suspects, upon looking into Wilson's calm, steady gaze, that Wilson was letting him escape, that he was letting Rogers spend himself and ease off the hunt.

"Do you know how many years I've been trying to figure out why I got sent to earth?" Wilson asks.

The Winter Soldier blinks at the non sequitur.

"Thirty-four years. Thirty-four years _exactly_ , 'cause I met Steve on my birthday. Just want you to appreciate that." The words are strong, but there's no fire behind them. _What's another birthday when you've seen millennia?_ a voice whispers.

"See, I always heard that Steven Rogers had a guardian angel, and a damn good one, too. So I come down 'cause the powers that be told me to, and I don't have a mission for _thirty-four years_ , 'cause they didn't figure I'd need to know, or something. Then I meet Steve and it's like a lightbulb goes on. Turns out Captain America's angel has gone AWOL, and I'm his replacement." He gives the Winter Soldier a suspicious look. "Though I guess you've got a pretty good excuse."

The Winter Soldier shifts his grip, ready in a heartbeat to go for his guns, his knives, the garrote around his wrist. They're in Kolkata, at the foot of the Howrah Bridge, and there are too many eyes watching. It is the only thing that stays his hand.

"Wouldn't do that, if I were you," Wilson says mildly, watching his hands. "Been a long time since angels fought while corporeal. It won't be pretty if you try."

The Winter Soldier scans the skyline. "Is Rogers acting backup?"

"Nah. Managed to convince him to sit this one out. Saw you coming back on the radar with less blood in your thoughts, thought I'd see if you wanted to talk."

The Winter Soldier doesn't roll his eyes, but sense memory wants him to. He says nothing.

"Didn't think so." Wilson eases back in his stance. "So you're Steve Rogers' Guardian. Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm a big fan. You're a legend upstairs, you know? Pulled his ass outta the fire what, four times? And one straight from Azriel's fingers. I heard he was spitting mad, had to completely rewrite his book."

The Winter Soldier's skin is crawling, and it feels as though a finger is tapping at the edge of his thoughts. "Guardian angel."

The corner of Wilson's mouth ticks up. "You and me both, man. Blew my mind, in D.C." He sobers immediately. "And HYDRA had you for seventy years. You don't read much like an angel anymore, you know?" The Winter Soldier can't see into Sam Wilson as he can into other men, but his horror is plain. It's enough to see he sincerely believes this.

Wilson must see the doubt in his eyes, because he changes tack. "Okay, you don't believe me. Fine. But try this on for size." He closes his eyes, and a familiar _thrum_ starts in his chest. The Winter Soldier steps back, eyes widening. Against his will he wants to relax into that soothing pulse.

Then it's gone, and Wilson is coughing. "Damn, he says, voice hoarse. "Been a long time since I tried that out loud. But you see what I mean, right?"

The Winter Soldier runs.

This time, Wilson doesn't follow, and the Winter Soldier loses himself in the streets and back-alleys, where no one will care if they see a wild-eyed foreigner dodging through traffic. He burrows into the slums lining the Hooghly River. Humanity teems around him, swirling in eddies in his wake, and the Winter Soldier is keenly aware that he is not like them, but that he is not the only one. Memories of a bright smile in a jazz club, of high places in the wind, of a wobbly hymn in a shabby church, of wooden beads clacking together, of whispering in ancient languages over Steve's immobile body—

The Winter Soldier stops dead in the street, and the tide of humanity washes past. Beggars pluck at his clothes, drawing away when they see his weapons. He comes back to himself only when small fingers try to lift the smaller of his two belt knives, and he dangles the child up by her wrist before she has time to squawk. The rest scatter, scenting blood in the air. The Winter Soldier stares. The frailty of the bones in his grip, the delicate, blade-like sweep of cheekbones in a starved face, snag in his memories, and he drops her with a strangled cry. She scampers away, and the Winter Soldier finds the closest, fastest route to the rooftops.

He can feel the wind up here. The air is cleaner, the view farther. He is not alone—there are women cooking and children playing, and more women hanging out their laundry—but he is freer where he can see the sky, so he ignores their curious eyes and lets himself run. The wind blows his hair back from his face, and his stomach swoops as he jumps from one roof to another. Memories flicker through his mind like shards of a broken mirror, each showing a fragment of a reflection he can't make out. He is distracted; he misses his footing. He rolls back to his feet and kicks a rain barrel in frustration.

He jumps down to the street, startling a group of Dalits scraping together the refuse. They gather together, casting him narrow-eyed, wary looks, and the Winter Soldier feels a strange kinship with them. He, like they, was seen only for the work he did. He, too, was untouchable, filthy, his hands unclean with the blood of his butchery. He died, and for the sins of his past life he was made to suffer in the next. He shudders and leaves them to their misery.

He finds Sam Wilson in a hostel in Shyambazar, tucked over a patched-together nightclub. The Winter Soldier breaks into his dorm and pins him with a hand over his mouth. Wilson is remarkably calm, given that he wakes to the Winter Soldier hovering over him in the dead of night; the Winter Soldier almost respects him for it. He may belong in the loony bin, but the Winter Soldier's no judge of that at all, and Wilson, at least, is steady as a rock when push comes to shove.

_Is it lunacy when it rings true?_

The Winter Soldier is coming to hate that little voice. "I won't come back with you," he says.

Wilson stares at him a moment, then raises a sardonic brow. The Winter Soldier moves his hand so he can speak. "Didn't ask you to."

The Winter Soldier hisses. "You were going to."

Wilson shrugs. "You've got questions. I've got some answers, Steve's got more. We can help, if you want."

He sounds so certain. How can he be? Unless he can see into the Winter Soldier as easily as the Winter Soldier sees into him. The thought makes him pull away from the bunk.

 _If you want_. The Winter Soldier wasn't permitted to want. He's learning what it means, what it feels like, but it's difficult.

He's tired. He's hungry. He... _wants_ his head to make sense again. He wants, desperately, for the dispassion and clear thought of his former self. He's caught in between selves, and he's _tired_ of pushing them back. He won't be the assassin, but the friend? The fallen comrade? He doesn't know if he _can_ be that.

It was better, during the hunt. Then, he had a mission, a focus. The Winter Soldier was programmed for action, James Barnes bred for restlessness, and this ennui is a worse torment than any he could devise for a target. He is fraying around the edges. He needs an anchor, something to ground himself to so he doesn't drift away.

He's just not ready for it to be Steve.

"No," he says.

"No?" 

"He wants Bucky. I can't... be that. I can't let him ask me to stay."

Sam Wilson nods. He watches the Winter Soldier leave, and he does not intervene.

 _Look out for him_ , he finds himself saying.

 _I will_ , is the solemn reply.

***

_Hey, Steve._

_Yeah?_

_Do you still have that painting of me?_

_Let it go, Buck._

_...Yeah. Alright._

***

Philadelphia is miserable in the summer. The Winter Soldier breathes deeply when he steps off the train, and moisture is rich in the air. A trickle of sweat drips down under his collar. He doesn't know why he chose this city; he has vague memories of setting off a bomb in the downtown area, but he's not sure when it happened. It doesn't seem like an ideal criterion for selecting a new home.

He gets a place in a falling-down rowhouse in North Philly, a basement floor apartment that opens onto a narrow concrete stair to street level. The neighbors upstairs are loud, but it's comforting, in a way: civilians mean he's not back _there_ —not in the war, not in deep freeze, not facing his latest handler for his next mission.

The first thing he does upon moving in is to sweep for bugs and check the sightlines. The next thing he does is to pick up a job working nights as a security guard at a local junk yard.

He doesn't know what he's trying to accomplish. Playing house like a normal human being? He's not normal. He sleeps with a gun under his pillow and a knife strapped to his thigh, and he wakes from screaming nightmares almost every day. When the kids in the apartment above thunder down the stairs he drops to the floor, reaching for the submachine gun that's no longer there. He doesn't go out, he doesn't have friends, and he does nothing at all but go to work, put off sleeping, and stare at the empty walls when he's at home and awake.

He supposes he's lonely. He doesn't remember what it feels like, so speculation is useless.

Sometimes on his nights off, when the pressure of staying in his apartment drives him to restless, fidgety distraction, he'll leave and pace out his frustration on the streets. He never has a particular destination in mind—he walks until he's tired, and then walks back. Sometimes, it lets him sleep without dreams.

Steve occupies the forefront of his thoughts. This doesn't surprise him; he was at the forefront of Bucky's almost constantly. Parts of him want nothing more than to drop everything and go to New York (or is it D.C., now? he's not sure) and hunt him down. It's a compulsion so strong that he comes out of an episode to find he's pressed the outline of his fingers into the fridge door handle. It comes so swiftly that, when he passes by a mural painted on a warehouse wall, he's halfway out of the city before he catches himself.

Sometimes the only thing that stays him is the uncertainty of what would come next. Should he apologize? _Sorry I killed people for seventy years and let you rot in the ice_. No. Just the idea is laughable. Sweep him into his arms and kiss him like on the covers of the cheap romance novels he sees at the gas station? He purses his lips. Too melodramatic. He's not sure Steve would take well to his dead best friend laying one on him, anyway.

Of course, those are the non-violent options. The Winter Soldier is afraid of his other reactions, should he see Steve again.

Time passes. Fall settles over the city, changing the leaves and sending a brisk wind through the streets. The Winter Soldier has become a familiar sight around the neighborhood. They have no idea who he is, of course; to them, he's just "that white guy in 342, you know, with the metal arm?" He goes to work; he goes to the grocery store (he puts it off as long as he can—he finds the endless choices uncomfortable); he wanders aimlessly around the streets. They see him, and he sees them. He sees the kids playing basketball on the community court, sees their troubled family lives, their aspirations, their boredom and their youthful discontent. He sees the meth-heads and whores on the corners, their miserable hatred for their lots, their desperation to forget just a little longer. He sees the poor families just trying to make enough to get a new coat for the baby. He sees, but it does not touch him. He walks on.

He thinks it might have stayed that way, if not for his next-door neighbors.

It's his night off. Memories are rising thick and fast, and his walls are more maddening than usual. It's later than he usually goes out, but he's not precisely afraid of getting mugged, and being caught in the crossfire of a turf war could only be a mercy. He double-checks he has his weapons and locks the door behind him.

"Oh, thank God," he hears, and he spins to see a heavily pregnant woman leaning up against the stairwell in front of his door. Her belly ripples as he watches. "Look, this is stupid and I hate to have to ask—" she winces through another contraction, "—but this baby comin' _now_ and I ain't got nobody to go with me to the hospital 'cause my fool of a man went and got hisself workin' nights this week." She waves a hand. "I'd go my own self, but this ain't the greatest neighborhood, and I'd'a asked Tanya next door, but they's in Atlanta this weekend so you's all that's left." She looks him up and down. "Figure you ain't the worst bet."

 _I have no idea who you are_ , the Winter Soldier thinks, but a tiny voice in the back of his mind nudges him. _Go with her_. He puts his keys in his pocket and walks over. He can't quite meet her eye—looking into people's eyes is a fraught activity, these days—but he clears his throat. "Okay."

"Great," she says, hefting her way back up the stairs. “Thanks. I’m Shamenika, but most people just call me Nika.”

The Winter Soldier thinks. "Winter Soldier" is hardly and option, and "Bucky" is... not an option, either. "James," he finally answers.

“Good to meet you,” she says.

He walks with her to the SEPTA station. It's not a long walk, just around the corner, but she steps gingerly and pauses frequently, either from pain or because she's out of breath. The Winter Soldier watches her bowed head, fascinated by the dozens of tiny braids she’s put in her hair.

"You ain’t got people of you own, that you can just come along with me?" Nika asks, easing her way through the station's turnstile.

“No.”

"Mm-mm. Everyone should have people."

He shrugs. What is, is. He walks in front of her onto an empty car, scanning for threats. It's clear. She finds a seat, and he's about to step back out, but she gives him a look. "You ain't goin' nowhere 'til I'm at a hospital," she declares, glowering at him, but he can see the fear and nerves biting at her. She doesn't trust him, but he's better than her being alone. He stands next to her, gripping the bar and doing his best to act sentry. She's running her hands over her stomach, up and down, and dim memories of Bucky's mother slip free. He remembers her stroking her belly, too. He stares at the wall of the car.

There aren't many riders this late at night, but at one stop a group of kids get on. They're wearing hoodies and bandanas; one is playing with a butterfly knife. They're children to the Winter Soldier's eyes. They stare at him and Nika.

"Looks like we got us an oreo," one of them says, glaring at Nika. Another sneers at the Winter Soldier.

"Fuckin' deNiro. Gotta take our women, now, too?"

Nika makes a scoffing noise. "He ain't my man." Her hands are pressed against her belly.

"Whatever," the kid says. They clump together on the other side of the car, spreading territorially over the seats. The Winter Soldier watches them.

One notices his attention. "What you starin' at, huh, cracker?" He struts right into the Winter Soldier's personal space, thrusting his face toward his. The Winter Soldier pulls back. "You got a problem?"

The Winter Soldier says nothing. If he attacks, he will neutralize him.

"Fuckin' pussy," the kid says, waving the Winter Soldier off. "Must'a lost your balls with your hand."

The Winter Soldier clenches his fists. He meets the kid's gaze. He sees absent parents and powerful-seeming friends; he sees anger and hopelessness and spite. He sees the rush of power in throwing about his weight, and he knows the bitter emptiness of his future. He stares into Tyrone Michaels's soul, and the tension in the air changes. One of his compatriots looks up just as Tyrone falters. He catches the look in the Winter Soldier's eyes and pulls on his friend’s arm.

"Hey, man, c'mon, don't need a fight," he says. The Winter Soldier looks at him. Jeffrey Mtseka. His soul is bright and clean, despite the licks of soot about the edges.

Tyrone scoffs and yanks his arm back, but he is unsettled beneath his bluster. He retreats to the clump of his friends, and pointedly ignores the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier doesn't relax. He stays on point until they're off the car two stations later.

"I think I made it worse for you," he says to Nika.

"Yeah, probably," she says, fingers clenching into her stomach. "You didn't fight him, though. That's good. You a soldier?"

The Winter Soldier considers for a time. "Yeah."

Nika's contractions are coming closer and closer together by the time they get to the hospital, and the Winter Soldier finds himself getting jittery alongside her. "Are you the father?" the nurses ask him, and he stares, dumbfounded.

"No," Nika says. "He's just a friend."

"Then I'm afraid you're going to have to wait out here, sir." They sweep Nika away for an examination, leaving the Winter Soldier alone in the waiting area.

It's a long wait. More memories of his mother are coming up, meetings with midwives and doctors, Sarah Rogers coming over to help with the cooking when she got too large with Daisy. The sound of his mother screaming in pain, the memory of bloody sheets carried past. _She's an easy birther_ , a woman is saying. _Nice, wide hips_. The Winter Soldier tries to remember what Nika's hips had looked like, but all he can drag up is the colossal size of her stomach.

Three hours in, his restlessness returns. The adrenaline and novelty of the evening fade and he's reminded how much he hates hospitals. He peeks out of the waiting room, but it's the middle of the night, and the staff is minimal. He makes himself unobtrusive—shrinking his body language, not meeting eyes, moving as though he has a specific place to be—and explores.

It is not a wealthy hospital. The equipment is outdated, and a faint smell of mildew clings to some of the rooms. The supply closet on this floor has more than one empty shelf. It's hardly a shock; North Philadelphia may be gentrified in places, but this is Strawberry Mansion, not Brewerytown. There are no revitalization projects this side of Cecil B. Moore.

A faint whimper cuts through his appraisal, and the Winter Soldier turns. There's an open set of double doors, and beside them on the wall a plaque reads, "Neonatal Intensive Care Unit." A memory triggers: Rosie, newborn, startled by a car backfiring and fussing to be held. The Winter Soldier crosses the hall and peers into the ward. Rows of incubators and bassinets line the walls, each surrounded by a fortress of machines and readouts. He closes his eyes, suppressing a shiver. Then he hears the whimper again, and the world fades. He locates the source: a baby, midway along, arms and legs flailing in distress.

As though in a dream, operating half on muscle memory and half in the past, he steps into the ward and toward the baby. Smells of baby powder and disinfectant and powerful drugs fill the air. The baby looks up at him, mouth curled up in a moue of unhappiness. “Darnell,” the card on his bassinet reads. The Winter Soldier reaches out to lay his flesh and blood hand over the infant's chest. It's tiny, barely spanning the width of his palm. He can feel his heart racing, the frantic pull of his breaths, and he starts gently rubbing his belly.

Almost immediately the baby settles. The twist of his brow loosens, and his heartbeat slows beneath his fingers. The Winter Soldier feels the edges of his mouth quirk up. It is not quite a smile. Not quite. But it is close.

"What are you doing?" Startled, his head jerks up. A nurse is standing in the doorway, syringe in hand and confusion on her face. He forces his hand away from his gun. "You're not supposed to be in here," she says, marching toward him.

"I—" The Winter Soldier looks down at the baby. "I heard whimpering." He starts to pull away, but the baby starts fussing again, and he can't bring himself to move. He looks up at the nurse.

She's examining him, taking in his messy ponytail and ratty sneakers. "Just the same, sir. I can't let you in here without proper sterile procedure. Most of these babies have compromised immune systems."

The Winter Soldier ducks his head. Of course they'd be monitored. Who knows who might wander in, after all. "Sorry." He lifts his hand from the baby's chest, but he brushes a hand over his head before he pulls away. He looks challengingly at the nurse, as though daring her to comment.

Her look has turned speculative. It vanishes as she steps into his place, wielding the syringe. "This one's a smack baby," she says. "His mama shot up in her last trimester. Just stopped caring." She runs a couple fingers over his cheek, and he turns unfocused eyes toward her, his mouth making sucking motions. She reaches for the IV port going into his arm. "He's addicted, the poor thing. We have to give him shots of methadone just to keep him alive—he's so small, going cold turkey would kill him."

"That's awful," the Winter Soldier murmurs. He thinks of his mother. A toss of the cosmic dice, and would one of his sisters been left to die in an alley, addicted to Heroin? He thinks better of Winifred Barnes than that, but if it happens now, in the relative prosperity of the twenty-first century, it had to have happened during the Great Depression. He watches the nurse rub Darnell’s chest, and the little one's feet curl up in reflex.

"We can talk some more later," the nurse says, "but I have to do my rounds. I need you to leave, please."

The Winter Soldier ghosts out of the room, the image of the baby caught in his mind. He remembers watching Becky as a baby, tracing her face with a fingertip while she scrunched it up in her sleep. It's a gentle memory, free of blood or screaming, free of _duty_.

He never killed any babies, that he knows of.

He's back in the waiting room, staring blindly out the window when the nurse finds him again. "You know, we have a cuddling program, here," she says, lowering herself into the seat beside him. The Winter Soldier stills. He looks over, frowning.

"A what?"

"It's for the babies in the NICU. A lot of parents can't afford not to work, and since their little ones are so sick, they can't take them home. Some babies don't even have parents. They ran off as soon as they were born." Her eyes are hard. "Babies can die if they're not touched enough, did you know that?"

The Winter Soldier shakes his head. He thinks he sees where this is going.

"Better case scenario, they have developmental issues. So we get volunteers to cuddle them and make them feel loved." She sighs. "It's not so hard, getting cuddlers in places like the Children's Hospital, but here? No one wants to come here."

The Winter Soldier shifts in his seat, thinks of the fragile warmth of the baby beneath his hand. "I have—had—three younger sisters."

The nurse looks at him. "Yeah?"

The Winter Soldier nods. "Helped my ma raise 'em." He picks at the seam on his sweatshirt pocket.

"You a vet?"

He blinks at her.

"I see a few of 'em around. A lot of veterans fall through the cracks, wind up on the streets 'cause they can't find work." She eyes him. "You have that 'on patrol' look."

The Winter Soldier looks away. "Yeah. I'm a vet."

The nurse sighs again. "We don't normally accept soldiers fresh from the front as volunteers. Too much risk of their being triggered."

The Winter Soldier snorts. "Been a long time from the front."

She gives him a gentle look. "Long enough to be trusted with sick babies?"

The Winter Soldier says nothing. He barely trusts himself. The seedling of hope dries up in his chest, and he draws in the cold to numb it.

"We don't have many volunteers," the nurse says after a time, a resigned note to her voice. "Everyone here's got their own sh-stuff to deal with, too much to care about someone else's baby." She smoothes her hands together. "Raising three sisters, sounds like maybe you know how to hold a baby, at least." She smiles ironically. "Wouldn't ask too many questions on the background check."

"That doesn't seem smart."

She shrugs. "We're hard up. The nurses can't spare the time to do it properly. We'd welcome _any_ hands."

The urge to laugh bubbles up in the Winter Soldier's chest, bitter and stinging like acid. "Any hands, huh."

She gives him an odd look. "Yeah."

The Winter Soldier pulls his metal hand out from his pocket. "Even this one?"

The nurse's eyes go wide. "Wow," she says, half-turning in her seat. "That is one serious prosthesis." She glances at him, then holds out a hand. "May I?"

The Winter Soldier stares at her, caught off balance. He crushed a man's head, with this arm. Choked a girl to death in front of her mother. _You need some new memories_ , the sardonic part of his brain says. He offers up his hand, hesitant. She takes it carefully, respecting boundaries she can't see.

He doesn't feel much. There are pressure sensors for proprioception, but no pain receptors and no temperature differentials. It's not nervous or vascular, and it doesn't have the instinctual reflexes a flesh limb would have. But it's the first time someone other than him has touched this arm, outside of HYDRA techs and victims-to-be ( _and Steve_ ), and it feels... significant.

The nurse whistles, flexing his fingers. "This is really impressive," she says. "Is it integrated with your nervous system? You're carrying it like a regular hand, I didn't even notice it."

"Yeah. In the shoulder."

"It's the whole _arm_?"

The Winter Soldier nods.

"What happe—sorry, no, you don't have to answer that."

He shrugs. "I don't remember much. I... fell. Mission gone bad."

"Huh." She turns his hand over to inspect the back of it. "This is light-years beyond the prostheses we see here. Sometimes it feels like we're still using peg-legs and hooks." She looks up at him. "You've got some friends in high places."

It's like pouring ice water over his head. The Winter Soldier pulls back his arm. "Not really." He's suddenly hyper-aware of the wealth of information his flesh arm tells him, relative to the deafness of the metal. The dryness of the air; the rough weave of his cargoes; the soft, fuzzy lining of his sweatshirt. He finds himself wishing, for the first time he can remember, that he had his flesh arm back.

The nurse watches him, a knowing look on her face. "A prosthetic arm doesn't mean you can't be a cuddler," she says.

He doesn't reply. It's been a long time since he did anything gentle. He wants it, even if it's not his sisters he's holding. There's a place in him that knows how to wrap a swaddling cloth, and he misses that knowledge coming easier than how to put a knife between two vertebrae. He clears his throat. "Okay. Where do I sign up?"

The nurse smiles. "I'll get the paperwork ready."

More time passes. People come and go, some wearing scrubs and some wearing worried expressions, and the Winter Soldier watches them all. His restlessness has settled, and he lets his thoughts simmer in the background for a while. The nurse ( _her name is Gloria_ ) leaves him to tend the rest of her charges. "Some need injections, some need their incubators tweaked, some just need changing," she explains.

"I can help," he says, but she shakes her head with a wry grin.

"It's my job. Even as a cuddler you wouldn't do it." She snorts. "First time a man offers to change a diaper for me and I have to turn him down. Typical."

Eventually he asks her for an update on Nika's status. "Lemme just go check," she says, and disappears around the corner to the nurses station.

The Winter Soldier stares at his hands.

"She's still in Delivery," Gloria says, swinging back into the waiting room. "They just gave her an epidural. She your girl?"

The corner of the Winter Soldier's mouth quirks up. "No. Just a friend."

"Nice friend."

The Winter Soldier shrugs.

Gloria spends a few minutes telling him the basics of the cuddler trade, and sits him down to fill out paperwork. The Winter Soldier has a fairly solid identity, enough to hold up against the type of checks the hospital might request. Gloria looks at his driver's license. "James Barnes, huh. Your parents must not have liked you, very much."

The Winter Soldier gives her a blank look. "What?"

"James Barnes. Bucky Barnes? Captain America's sidekick, sniper for the Howling Commandos?"

He stares.

"Oh, come on. This is _history_. If it was James Kirk or, I don't know, James and the Giant Peach I could _maybe_ forgive you, but everyone and their uncle learns about Captain America in ninth grade civics class."

"I know who he is."

"That's a relief."

He finishes his paperwork, and Gloria makes no more mention of his name. It's unnerving to think that over the past seventy years, while he was killing people for HYDRA, his legacy became... this. A throwaway pop-culture punchline, summarized in a single sentence.

He doesn't talk much, the rest of the night. Nika's daughter, Hickory June Brown, is born at 8:32 AM on Wednesday, November 5th. She weighs eight pounds, seven ounces, and she comes into the world screaming 'til she's blue in the face. The Winter Soldier visits them both in Recovery. Nika's propped up against a heap of pillows, sweaty and exhausted, flyaway hairs coming loose from her braids, but she's smiling at her daughter. She looks up at him when he comes in.

"Didn't think you'd stay," she says.

He shrugs awkwardly. "Better than what I would've been doing."

She sighs. "Man, you make me feel depressed for you. You wanna see her?"

He does. Nika lifts her up so he can see her face. It's a newborn's face, scrunched and puffy, and her head is still vaguely cone-shaped, but he can see her mother's love in her. His lips quirk up. "She's beautiful."

"Damn right she is," Nika says, staring down at her daughter.

The hospital wants to keep her overnight for observation, and her husband is calling, desperate for news. The Winter Soldier leaves quietly. He walks all the way home, his step lighter than usual, and when he sleeps it is dreamless and deep.

***

"Do you believe in angels, Bucky?" Steve is sitting at their battered little table, the sun streaming in through the kitchen window. Shadows lean long over the floor; Steve's eyes are black pits in the half-light.

"I—I don't know—"

"It's okay, you can tell me." Steve's sketchbook is open before him, and upon it Bucky can see the swirling mass of the Pattern, spilling from page to page and spreading out over the table. "Just tell me, Buck, I'm not a child, for Chrissakes."

"I can't—"

"Can't, or won't?"

"There are rules, Steve. You're not supposed to know."

Steve turns away, his face disappearing into shadow, and countless wings rise from beneath his shoulders. "It's too late for that, Bucky."

The air stirs, sweeping Steve aside and blowing away the dingy walls of their apartment. Thunder rolls, pressing through the air like a flock of birds taking flight. It washes over Bucky’s faces.

_Do you understand your Duty, Baruchiel?_

_I do, High One._

Glimpses of What Might Be coalesce before him, a sending visible only to those permitted. The threads of his fate are iron-strong but hidden, and the glimpses strange. Falling, wings broken. Emotionless slaughter—common enough for an angel, perhaps, but unusual for an avatar. Great love. Protection, of his charge and nations of others. Freedom. Bucky feels himself flicker.

The Confessor roars, worried. _Your fate is clouded, young one. You will fall and lose yourself to darkness. Do not forget your way._

A ripple of unease mars Bucky’s serenity, and a flare of determination calms him. _I will remain_ , he swears.

Screams arise, the furious, willful bellows of a human bringing forth life. The Confessor cocks one of its heads, listening.

_Then go. You are being born as we speak._

The Winter Soldier jerks upright on the couch, a scream half-caught in his throat. His heart is racing; sweat chills his skin. He swings his legs to the floor and holds his head in his hands.

He had known in an abstract, distant way that he was different. He healed faster, saw further, heard more. Hit harder. Sam Wilson had given him a name for what he was, but he hadn't known it bone-deep, the way he knew how to snap a neck.

No longer. He can feel power thrumming in the back of his mind, a dangerous, lulling call, and he shores up the fraying barriers that keep it locked down. He runs his fingers through his hair. "Fucking Christ."

An angel. He's a Goddamned angel. He gets up to pace, and barks his shin on the coffee table. He blinks. _Oh_. He's in the living room. The late afternoon sun streams through the bare windows, and dust motes dance in the shafts of light. It's quiet but for the muted grumble of a passing car.

New memories are slipping into place, subtler and more terrible than before. Voices, thousands of them. The alignment of his wavelengths with the Will of all his brethren. The unity of the Host. Tears stream down the Winter Soldier's face, though he can't say why.

He cries, and he remembers the voice of Heaven.

***

He takes the train to Center City the next day. It's a Sunday. He slips into the Basilica on Logan Square and sits in the back row. Marble columns vault overhead, their color reminiscent of blood drying on bone. The air shivers beneath the organ's somber Advent voluntary.

The Winter Soldier rubs his fingers together, and he finds himself wishing for his rosary beads. He counts out the prayers on his fingers, and the sensation of holiness rolling over his shoulders, of old, peaceful memories come home to roost, eases him.

_In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. All praise is due to God, the Lord of the Worlds. The Merciful, the Compassionate. Master of the Day of Judgement. You alone do we worship and You alone we seek for help. Guide us to the Straight Path. The path of those upon whom You have bestowed your blessings, those whose portion is not wrath, nor of those who have gone astray._

The service is higher than those of his childhood. An acolyte swings a censer of bittersweet incense and the carillon tolls the blessing of the Eucharist. A guest bishop from San Diego gives the sermon; the Winter Soldier ignores it in favor of reading the stained glass. The service is in English, not Latin, and he hears no whispered Gaelic, no soft Irish burrs, from the pews around him.

He leaves church weighed by a renewed awareness of his shirked duty, but lighter, too. He ambles around Logan Square, watching the water cascade over the fountain. He catches sight of the central library through the spray.

He wonders if his sisters are alive. It's possible; Daisy would be—Jesus, she'd be eighty-four, now. He makes his way across the road and steps inside.

He signs up for a one-hour slot in the computer lab. Monitors loom around him, ominous despite their innocuous content, and he swallows as he boots up his screen. He breathes an involuntary sigh of relief when no faces of cascading data swirl into life.

An hour later, he leaves with some answers and more questions. Rebecca he finds easily enough. After the war she became an outspoken anti-war activist, disrupting the calm, placid veneer of the early 50s. She was rounded up as a part of Joseph McCarthy's campaign on account of her father; she was released on account of her brother. She never married, as far as he can find. He can find no record either of a current address or her death.

Daisy, however, did get married, twice. Her first husband was a Korean War veteran. They had no children, and he died two years later in a car accident. Daisy didn't remarry until 1973, to a rancher out in Texas. He memorizes her address.

Of Rosemary, he can find no record at all, outside of a marriage license, an annulment, and a death certificate dated 1983. She died of a cocaine overdose.

He hesitates for a moment, then searches for a Jack Miller, born and raised in Queens with a younger sister. He finds his obituary, dated July 14, 1967, from New Jersey. He was shot by a white police officer while protecting his sister's children during a protest. Grace Miller went on to give a series of passionate speeches, rallying the city around her brother's death to bring the week-long riot to an end. She drew the Newark black community together into one voice united, to decry police brutality and to demand equal representation in the police department. The Winter Soldier closes the window, a bitter taste in his mouth.

He leaves the library. He walks home instead of taking the train. He doesn't get back until well after dark, and his dreams are heavy and wistful.

***

"Yo, watch out!"

The Winter Soldier turns his head; a missile is coming toward him, slower than a rocket propelled grenade and far larger. He throws up his metal hand and snatches it out of the air.

It's a basketball. He stares at it in confusion for a few moments before the kid jogging up to him registers.

"Hey, man," the kid says. "Nice catch."

The Winter Soldier holds out the ball. The kid is shorter than him, rangy and quick and wearing a kufi cap. His eyes are bright and clever. The Winter Soldier assesses him as a swift, flexible fighter and a vicious tactician. He has no doubt the boy reads as much off the Winter Soldier as the Winter Soldier reads off him.

A group of kids stand in the court across the street, waiting. Some are talking, pushing each other around in mock aggression, but the rest are watching him and their representative. They are all wary.

The kid takes the ball, and the Winter Soldier turns to leave, but the kid speaks up. "Hey, you the guy that took Nika to the hospital, ain't you," he says.

The Winter Soldier glances back. "You know Nika?"

"Yeah." The kid shrugs. "I know a lot of people. That was a good thing you did, man. This area, it's rough."

The Winter Soldier glances around the street, to the shabby signs, the graffiti, the garbage cans put out two days ago that still haven't been collected. He raises an eyebrow, but the kid just shrugs and lobs the ball back to his friends. 

"So what's your name?" he asks.

"James." It comes easier with each repetition.

The kid nods. "Yasser. So, you like goin' by James, or is Mr. Barnes better for people you just met?"

The Winter Soldier stills. He checks the skylines and windows, and the passersby for threats. There are none; there is just the boy, Yasser, standing in front of him with an inner stillness that should be beyond a high schooler.

"Yeah, man, I know who you are," Yasser says. "I know everyone from here to 33rd. I make it my _business_ to know. And Mr. Barnes, you been makin' the grapevine flap in the breeze."

He stares into Yasser's eyes, but he's no angel. Neither is he a djinn or an orisha, or any kind of demon, obayifo or kpelekpe. He is not any kind of creature at all; he's just a human, and a more perceptive one that most. He's abruptly reminded of Steve.

"Enjoy your game,” he says. He turns and walks to the SEPTA station.

"Enjoy Bradley's junk pile! I hear it gets lonely there, at night!"

Behind him he hears whooping and hollering, and he hears Yasser boasting to the gathered boys. The Winter Soldier is intrigued. The edge of his mouth quirks up in an expression that's becoming increasingly familiar. He hears the distant rattle of the train, and he quickens his step.

Yasser. He will remember the name.

***

Glenwood is not a nice neighborhood. The Winter Soldier hadn't particularly cared, upon moving in; he is deadlier than a gang or a tweaking junkie. He has no use for drugs, and he owns nothing of value aside from his weapons, which never leave his person. If he is being honest, he is almost fond of the mold on the ceiling, the sagging stairs and creaky A/C. There is even an aged Jew up in the corner apartment. _Mr. Abramovitz_ , his mind provides. _He's actually kind of an asshole_.

His early childhood hadn't been simple years. He had been waiting for his charge, learning the ropes of humanity, and negotiating the minefield of his mother's superstitions. But the memories have a film of nostalgia over them, and he is soothed, living in this vestige of the tenements of his youth.

It reminds him of why he came to Earth in the first place.

"James!" Nika shouts outside his door. "Got that pot you wanted."

He opens the door for her, checking the perimeter as she bustles in, Hickory and the pot in her arms. "If I ain't never gotta pull a shift like that again," she says, "I'mma die happy."

It used to be easy for him to disappear into his own head. He could let himself drift, blind to the world and relying on instinct and habit to carry him through. He would surface a week later, plus a few memories and with new holes in the wall. As far as coping mechanisms went, it seemed okay.

Nika won't let him slip away like that, anymore. A week after she returned from the hospital she came over, baby Hickory in tow, took one look at his empty apartment, bare but for the mattress on the floor and a single chair, and dragged him to the nearest thrift stores. He now has a whole living room set, and a proper bed, to boot.

She won’t let him neglect himself, either. Three times a week she barges in and sets the Winter Soldier to cooking. He's got a limited repertoire, but it's better than nothing, so he stirs the soup without complaint and listens to her coo at her daughter. Hickory is laid on the floor beside the beat-up coffee table, grabbing at her toes. Nika looks exhausted.

"Met Yasser," he says.

Nika looks up at him. "Yeah? What he have to say?"

"You know him?"

"Everyone knows Yasser."

The Winter Soldier considers. "He run a gang?"

She snorts. "Hell no. But he knows everyone who do. All the dealers and pimps, too. Joe sometimes pays him to tip off the police when he sees new squats by the tracks."

Joe is her husband, he remembers. It's hard, remembering nonessential things.

Nika’s voice draws him back to the present. "He did that thing where he called you by your full name, didn't he."

"How'd you know?"

Nika scoops Hickory into her arms. "Don't look, you pervert." The Winter Soldier obligingly looks down at the soup. "Ow! I swear you turnin’ into a cannibal, little girl. God forbid when you start teething." She raises her voice to address him. "He do it to anyone he thinks is interesting, or dangerous, or useful. You probably got all three."

"You think I'm dangerous?"

He can hear how flat the look Nika shoots him is. "I know what a gun looks like under a shirt," she says. "And I know punks like on the SEPTA don't just back down 'cause they 'don't want a fight.' Everyone on the whole damn block knows you's dangerous."

The Winter Soldier grunts and turns down the heat to a simmer.

He tails Yasser for the next few days, learning his habits and movements. It's easy, slipping back into the assassin's mindset. No one pays attention to the rooftops, these days, and rowhouses are highways above the streets.

Yasser Williams doesn't go to school. He can't be more than seventeen, but he spends his days working at a mechanic's shop up on Lehigh, and he still lives with his parents. The Winter Soldier watches him through the scope of his M82, sees him studying after work and eating dinner with his family. The next Friday when they go to prayers he slips into Yasser's room. 

It's Spartan. A basketball poster covers the door, a desk strewn with GED workbooks sits by the bed, and a prayer rug is rolled up in the corner beside a battered chest of drawers. Everything is worn, second-hand. There's a set of dog tags hanging from the lamp; the Winter Soldier hesitates, then raises them to the light. _Williams_ , they say. _Hassan A. 210-98-3554. A Positive. Muslim_.

He had planned on taking something, or perhaps leaving a calling card. He thinks better of it, now. He slips back out of the bathroom window, easing it shut behind him. He touches nothing but the tags. He doesn't return. He spends the rest of the day forcing back memories of a mission in Sarajevo, where he spent a month triggering his target's paranoia until he hanged himself.

He goes back to the basketball court the next day. Yasser is there, though the line-up of boys is different. It's a scrappy game of streetball, three on three, and Yasser's doing double duty as point and referee. The kids defer to him without quarrel, the Winter Soldier observes. He has the respect of his age-mates. He rules peacefully, not through fear. He watches until Yasser notices him, and the game slips to a halt. They stare at each other from across the street.

Yasser makes the first move. He tucks the ball under his arm and walks to the edge of the court, and plants his feet, waiting. The Winter Soldier crosses to him.

"Mr. Barnes," Yasser says in greeting.

"Mr. Williams," the Winter Soldier replies, and smirks at Yasser's surprise. "Two can play that game, kid."

"You play this game?" Yasser shoots back, bring up the basketball to a spin on his fingertip.

The Winter Soldier looks at it. Baseball was always more his sport. "Doesn't look too hard."

"Don't look too—oh, you gonna regret them words, white boy, when we done with you," Yasser says, grinning widely. He shoots the ball at the Winter Soldier's chest and jogs back to the court. "Let's see what you got! Come on!"

He loses miserably. They snatch the ball away as soon as it's in his possession, and go on to score five hoops before he can get it back. He doesn't dribble; they yell at him until he does. Their shit-talk rolls off him, but their body language shouts aggression and threat. A shoulder brushes against his, a hand waves too close to his face, and he stutters, fighting back the urge to lash out and draw blood. Memories trickle in: the All Star rep coming in to teach the high school gym classes the new game sweeping the country; back-lot games played after school with old, sewn-together balls that barely bounced; squabbles over points that ended in dusty scuffles. His muscles gain coordination, his tactical mind reengages. He snatches the ball mid-air, pulls a spinning back-flip over the oncoming defense, and lobs a three-pointer with a grin on his face.

He still loses. Superior skill trumps his fuzzy, patchwork recollection, and he watches two baskets made to his every one. He can't stop grinning, though, despite his adrenalized trembling, and Yasser comes up to him after with a respectful nod.

"Not bad," he says. "You gray as hell, but you got moves."

"I was born and raised in the ass-end of Brooklyn," he says, breathing deep the cool air. "You pick up a few things, even if it's by accident."

"Brooklyn, huh." Yasser shrugs with the elaborate machismo of the teenaged. "We play here every Tuesday. You wanna play, we won't say no."

"It always gonna be six on one?"

Yasser grins, his smile white in the deepening twilight. "Why, you gonna cop an attitude? 'Cause you do, we gonna put you back in your place."

Bucky grins back. "Only seeing one attitude here, and it ain't mine."

"Oh, you done it to yourself, Brooklyn. You done it to _yourself_."

They part ways, and Bucky walks home with a lighter heart. He faced pseudo-combat and his instincts didn't trigger once.

It is a good day.

***

The next three games they beat him soundly. The fourth, he wins.

***

It's been long years since the Winter Soldier had a normal sleep pattern. His missions often demanded he stay awake observing, day or night, and cryo sleep barely merited the term. Working nights doesn't help. So when Yasser comes to Bucky’s door at one in the morning on his night off, it's not that big an imposition.

It's still a surprise.

"Yasser?" he asks, peering out into the darkness of the front stoop. "What the hell are you doing here this late?"

"Sorry, Mr. Barnes," he says, somber and urgent. "I didn't have anyone else who could help." His emotions are a tangle of worry. Bucky's muscles clench. The structure of Yasser's mind is known, but there's another beneath it, one that's muted, one used to hiding. There's somebody else on the stoop, Bucky can smell the fear in his sweat. He opens the door wider, and the pool of light reveals a kid, maybe fourteen, with a bloody nose and his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched protectively inward.

"Yasser, what happened?"

"This is Jermain," he says by way of an answer. "He lives a block over. His momma got drunk, got the cops called on her. Can he stay here? It's just for the night, 'til things cool down some."

He stares down at the kid, who stares sullenly back up at him.

" _Please_ , Mr. Barnes, I wouldn't be askin' if I had anyone else who could help, but Momma Wallace's got a full house, and la Señora don't take in kids. It's just for the one night."

Bucky's heart twists. He steps back and holds the door open. He steps back and holds the door open. "The couch is free," he says. Yasser sighs in relief and ushers the boy in.

Bucky goes to the kitchen and flicks on the lights. He pulls down a bowl and a spoon, and puts the pot of stew out on the stove. In the living room he can hear Yasser talking quietly. "Mr. Barnes is cool, man," he says. "He look like he could kill you with his pinky, maybe he could, I don't know, but he won't. You know he hugs babies in his spare time?"

He hears a disbelieving grunt.

"Would I lie to you? I got it from Lucille down at the hospital, he go in Wednesday and Saturday nights to hold the sick babies so they grow up strong. He ain't gonna hurt you, I swear."

Jermain says something in reply, but Bucky stops listening. He thinks of Nika, laughing at the idea of Yasser Williams as a gang leader. He bows his head. Even in poverty such as this, in an environment of perpetual violence and despair, humanity manages to find a way to shine through. He pushes aside thoughts of Steve and goes to drag out the spare blankets and sheets Nika made him buy. He balances them on the far edge of the couch. Jermain watches him, and Yasser watches Jermain; Bucky moves slowly and keeps his distance.

"There's stew in the kitchen if you get hungry," he says. "Bathroom's through there." He goes into his bedroom and shuts the door behind him.

In the morning, Jermain is gone. The blankets are neatly folded, the bowl and spoon rinsed and in the sink. There's no other sign of his guest.

It's like the first crack in a dam. The next time Yasser brings people to his apartment, they're not kids: they're rival gang members negotiating a cease-fire for Christmas. Bucky looks pointedly at Yasser, but Yasser pointedly ignores him right back.

"Don't be worryin', man," Yasser says after they've gone their separate ways. "You be like neutral territory. You ain't black, Latino, or Irish. I'm doin' you a favor, gettin' you off the grid, makin' your place a safe-zone. You just gotta pay that back some."

"Should I get more dishes?" Bucky asks sardonically. "Start cooking in bulk?"

"I don't care _what_ you do," Yasser says, "so long as you keep helping out when it's needed."

Bucky snorts. "You guilt trip like a ninety-year-old grandma."

"You ain't met my momma."

"She anything like you?"

Yasser grins. "She worse. Stay cool, Mr. Barnes." He hops off the arm of the couch and slips out the door.

"Hey, Yasser," Bucky calls out after him. "Why me?"

Yasser looks back at him from the stairwell. "You walked Nika to the hospital. You ain't gotta do that." He looks away, shrugs. "You play ball with the kids every week. You ain't gotta do that, neither."

Bucky feels a wave of compassion for this boy. He reminds him so much of Steve. "Hey, Yasser," he says again, softer. "Why you?"

Yasser looks at him, and Bucky sees in his eyes the shape of the man he will become. "My momma says one hand don't clap. They ain't enough people be tryin' to clap together in this city. If I can bring hands together, God says I should do that."

Bucky nods, swallowing. "Then I say to you, Salāmun 'Alayka, for that you persevered in patience."

Yasser stares at him in surprise, a strange look coming into his eye, and the stoop light flickers, casting a shadow over Yasser's head as though a blessing has been cast down. Bucky bows his head and shuts the door. He sinks to the floor, wrapping his arms around himself.

 _Steve_. He misses him more than a missing limb. He runs his fingers over metal joints and squeezes his eyes shut against the tears.


	6. Chapter 6

Bucky's heard there's a community garden toward El Centro de Oro, near Lehigh and 3rd. He's heard the head gardener has a soft spot for hard cases, and gives solid advice to those in need. He's heard she has a God-touched hand with her tomatoes. He's heard she's a potent _curandera_.

He thinks Señora Cecilia might be an angel. It's a slender hope, but his way hasn't eased, and he needs to do something—even if it's crashing a community garden looking for guidance. 

It's April, the sun is shining and the trees are leafing. A warm breeze blows in from the east as he walks, and he can smell spices and turned earth layered over the muddy reek of the Delaware River. He's got gardening gloves in his pocket and his hair tied back in a haphazard bun. He won't come empty-handed, nor will he leave without doing his fair share.

He finds his way to a two-block plot bursting with green. It's surrounded on three sides by walls painted with murals, and Bucky hears shouted Spanish amidst the English. A smattering of volunteers move down the rows, chatting and weeding and picking the spring crop of asparagus. He steps up to a girl with her hair caught back in a braid and wearing sturdy, oversized jeans rolled up twice at the hems. She gives him a narrow-eyed stare before she points to the corner.

"She always spends lunch with her tomato plants," she says. Bucky nods, and follows down the row. He can feel the volunteers' eyes on his back. They're curious and cautious, but not suspicious. He's seen more than his share of racial violence in Brooklyn, and even more here in Philly; whatever sort of person la Señora is, she keeps the peace.

He finds her as promised beneath the tomato vines, hidden by the frames and digging in the earth. She's tiny, iron-haired, her limbs wiry and strong. When he looks in her eyes Bucky rocks back against the force he sees within. She's an angel, all right. She's the strongest of his kind he's seen since—

"If you call me Última, I'll grind you up and fertilize the beans with you," she says. "I'm Puerto Rican, not Mexican."

"I—"

"I've heard of you, _Mr. Barnes_. I've heard a _lot_ about you." She prods him out of the way with her spade, and goes to grab the bag of Miracle-Gro behind him. "I don't know if I wish to be seen talking to a broken angel and assassin."

Bucky stares at her, winded.

"There is little to say, to a man like that. But _Bucky_ , the man who half-raised Captain America and who is making to do the same for the ghettos of North Philadelphia? I think I can talk to him." She looks up and spears him with her gaze. "Who am I talking to, now?"

Bucky sets his teeth, breathing through a wave of indignation, and scowls at her. "You're an angel," he snaps. "You figure it out."

She chuckles. "Oh, _me gustas mucho_ ," she says. "Most people, they shrivel up like raisins when I speak so."

"I've seen a lot worse than you," he replies stiffly.

" _Relájate_. Think of it as advance screening. I make you react to test your mettle."

"Fuck you, lady."

"Language, Mr. Barnes. Tell me, are you avoiding Steve because you truly believe he deserves better, or because you are afraid of yourself?"

Bucky turns on his heel and marches back the way he came.

"When you find out," she calls after him, "tell me! I would dearly love to know!"

He's barely two rows away when the girl he'd asked directions from pops up in front of him. Her stance is stubborn and set, and her eyes nervous. "I know what you're thinking," she blurts.

 _I'm thinking God's elder children are raging assholes_. "I sincerely doubt that."

She shifts her weight. "She has a way of dragging your nastiest shit up front when she meets you," the girl says. "I went to her when I first found out I was pregnant, and she called me a slut and asked what my parents would have thought of me."

Bucky stares at her. " _Why_?"

The girl shrugs a shoulder. "Soon as she said it I busted out crying, and then she said, 'now that you've gotten that out of your system I can tell you true what I see.' And she did. She said I was strong and brave, and that I'd make a good mother, and she said that since she saw it written in my heart it was true. She didn't see slut written there, that was just shit everyone else tried to put on me, not the truth." Her eyes dart over Bucky's shoulder, back to where Señora Cecilia sat weeding her garden. "She has a hard way of talking, but if you came here, it was for a reason. It'll come out right, I promise."

Bucky glances around the garden before returning his gaze to the girl. "Why are you telling me this?"

She shuffles her feet. "Because La Señora only helps those who really need it. You get an eye, working here, for those coming for her help—and for those who actually get it. You look like you're one of the lucky ones. Don't want you to waste your chance."

Bucky swears under his breath. "Alright. You know what? Fine. I'll go back. Happy?"

The girl rolls her eyes, but there's the hint of a grin underneath. "Ecstatic." She moves off back to the asparagus.

He slinks back to the tomato patch. Señora Cecilia is standing, now, pruning away dead leaves from the vines. He stares at her, arms crossed. She seems to pay no mind. They stand like that, silent and watchful, for several minutes before she speaks.

"Did you know, I didn't meet my charge until my daughter gave birth to him?"

Bucky shifts, uncertain of her angle. "Your charge is your grandson?"

" _Sí_. He started this garden. It, too, is my charge, as much as he was."

"Was."

" _Se murió_. Two years ago. Yasser Williams shot him, right after his brother died in Afghanistan."

Bucky rocks back on his heels. "No. No way. Not Yasser."

Señora Cecilia lowers her shears and looks at him. "Yes, Yasser. He was not always so wise, Bucky. He had to earn it the hard way."

"But, you don't—your grandson—"

She sighs, looks out over the furiously life-filled garden. "I have been a Guardian for a long time, Bucky. I have come to Earth more times than you have years. Lived many lives, loved many people. You would think they blur, after a few centuries, but no, that is not our fate. We remember clear down to the bottom. And every life? It is different. Some are easy. Some are less so. I grieved when Héctor died, but I have seen many die. I no longer let it color my judgment."

Her eyes, when they look back to him, are full of compassion. "In all my years guiding and protecting mankind, I fell in love with my charge only once."

Bucky looks away.

"Do not be ashamed, _mijo_. It happens to us all, sooner or later. We cannot help but love them; that it has not happened to me more is amazing. The Confessors, they try to make us fear it, but that is because it is a cruel path. You cannot leave them if the passion sours, and you cannot be completely honest with them. So often it ends badly. I was lucky, that life."

Bucky says nothing, but his hands fist in his pockets.

"We angels, we can nudge our charges down a certain path, but when they set their minds to something, we cannot change them. They tell us to do something, we do it. They tell us to leave, we go. That you have avoided him this long..." She steps around to the workbench leaning up against the wall. Bucky follows. She strips off her gloves. "There are many problems with loving your own charge, but the biggest is that we cannot say no." She looks up at him and sighs. "You... have more to face than even that."

She walks right up to him and stares into his eyes. "Why are you afraid of going back to Steve?"

Bucky clears his throat. He can't meet her gaze. "You're an angel. You tell me."

She nods. "I could. I could tell you every last thing I see in that aching heart of yours. But it is better for you to say it yourself." She draws herself up, and there's an echo of power in her voice. "Lay down your woes before me, and I will bear you to the reconciliation of the Most High."

The Words of the Confession flare hot against his soul. He bows his head, and despite himself he assumes the Attitude of Penitence. "Sister, I failed in my duty. I abandoned my charge and left the path laid out by the Most High. I doubt my strength. I fear my future. I love where I ought not." The words spill out of him, faster and faster, and it feels like he's wrenching out his internal organs in the process. "I am a broken tool, useless and forgotten, Sister. What reconciliation is there for one like me?"

She comes to him, and lays her hands upon his shoulders. "Our Holy Parent does not cast aside Their children," she says. "They watch us even now. Can you not feel Them? Open yourself, my brother, and you will hear Their song even in the darkest shadows of Earth."

Bucky does as she bids and reaches into the center of his being, and he finds the nubbin holding back his power. He sucks in a shaking breath. Every time he has touched this place it has burned him. "I can't," he grits out, his voice wavering.

" _Sí, te puedes_ ," Señora Cecilia says to him. "I am here, I will contain your power if it slips from you. Lance the wound, Bucky."

Tears slip down his cheeks and he does as she bids. He lunges at that space in his inner self, that nubbin, that scoured wasteland where there is nothing left to grow. He strikes it as hard as he can, fear mustering his strength, and he braces himself against the rush of angelic force.

It doesn't come. There is instead a gentle creeping, a wash that burgeons into a river but doesn't upset his footing. He feels the holy weight of Grace flooding through him, and he keeps himself. He feels the light of it pushing against his skin, but it does not overwhelm him. He opens his eyes, and he sees Señora Cecilia watching, the eddies of his power reflected in her eyes. He sees the compassion and love within them.

"You have suffered so much," she says. She brushes a hand over his eyes, and he feels the blind spots seared through his retinas restore themselves. The nodes in his throat she wipes away, and she lowers the knotted scars on his back. "Be at peace with yourself, again."

He closes his eyes, and he feels himself reach outward with a thousand wings, the sunlight of the morning cascading over his shoulders in a golden mantle. He turns his face to the sky. "I could fly," he says.

"I wouldn't recommend it," Señora Cecilia replies dryly. She withdraws her hands and Bucky stumbles against his power. It flares too brightly before he manages to rein it back. "You have far to go, little one, but you've made the first steps."

Bucky manages to fold his power back into itself, and in the wake of his healing he feels fragile, like his bones and muscles don't quite remember how to work together. His legs are wobbly. Señora Cecilia sits him down on the bench. He finds himself leaning into her, burying his face in her shoulder, and she combs her fingers through his hair. "Ai, _hermanito_ ," she says. "You're so young. This was a hard mission they sent you on, for a newly fledged Guardian. Do not think less of yourself for not being perfect. I know none of us who could have withstood what you did without breaking. You are _strong_ , Bucky. Never forget that."

"Doesn't feel that way," he mumbles into her shirt.

"That's because you're just a fledgling. It's easy, fighting as an angel. It's a hundred times harder as a human. You can't put aside the pain and fear. It's impossible to avoid trauma, when you feel as deeply as they do."

She bends down, holding his head between her hands and looking him in the eye. "Bucky, you have survived torture and mental rape, and you are still here, talking to me. You will bear marks of this for the rest of this mortal life, and memories of it for eternity. But never, _ever_ doubt that you are strong. You _survived_. You _overcame_. You spit in their eye and said, ' _this_ is who I am. I guard and love those around me even in the face of impossible adversity.' I'm so proud of you, little one." She kisses his forehead, and he feels the cool liniment of her blessing smooth out the wrinkles in his brow. He sighs, and it feels like it comes from the bottom of his soul.

Bucky walks back to his apartment with dirt creased under his fingernails and the sweat of honest labor drying his shirt to his back. There will be good days and there will be bad days, just like in Brooklyn, just like in the war; but he can feel Señora Cecilia's kiss on his brow, a seal against despair, and he thinks maybe the way has become a little straighter.

***

He buys a TV later that week. He puts it on a chair in the living room, organizing the cables with zip ties and colored electrical tape. He fiddles with the settings for as long as he can before he flips it on. A telenovela is playing. He listens for a while, letting the rhythms of Spanish settle in his mind, before the ridiculousness of the plot compels him to change the channel.

It's a news station. Bucky watches until Steve's face appears onscreen, cowled and surrounded by the gaudy colors of his new compatriots. Bucky switches off the TV. He throws a blanket over it for his own peace of mind.

He goes back to his routine. He sleeps during the day and watches the heaps of scrap metal and rusted cars for Mr. Bradley at night. He cautiously expands his cooking repertoire, adding in a bit of green from Señora Cecilia's garden. He sits up and plays endless rounds of poker with Hal Jefferson when Hal gets the itch to shoot up again.

All through it his mind fixes on Steve. He hears on the political talk shows that Captain America has taken up part-time residence in Stark Tower, now re-named Avengers Tower. He is not the only Avenger to do so. The pundits waffle back and forth about the significance of it; the international community grumbles that America has once again kept for itself a deterrent to threaten other countries.

"Will the Avengers help globally, or only American interests?" they ask. "Are they only pursuing Stark's agenda?"

"No," Steve says every time he goes on air, which is about as often as Stark grandstands. He is turning into the Avengers' spokesman, and the politicians and the media try to catch him in his words. "We are an international organization," he insists. "If we can help, we will. As for Mr. Stark, he has his own business affairs well in hand."

What else would Captain _America_ say? people mutter, and Bucky fights the urge to hunt them down and wring their necks. 

Then a HYDRA cell in Argentina starts leaking toxic gasses into the civilian population, and The Avengers fly down to aid in evacuations and containment. Concerns of neutrality don't fade altogether, but they quieten. 

Bucky finds himself watching the news constantly, and buys a laptop and an internet subscription. He watches the footage from D.C. on repeat. The quality is poor; they move so fast the cameras can't follow. Bucky watches every minute of it, until the Winter Soldier's muzzle comes off and Steve stops dead in the street.

The Widow launches her rocket. The Soldier raises his gun. The Falcon takes him down. The Soldier comes to his feet—then staggers and looks down at his hands. All recordings stop there.

None of them show his face.

"—search continues for the so-called Winter Soldier," the year-old news piece says. "Sources in the intelligence community say rumors of his activities reach back to the late fifties, though there has been no conclusive evidence of his existence until now—"

Bucky speculates that the only reason he hasn't been tracked down by now is because SHIELD collapsed.

Bucky fears the thought of leaving his cocoon of security. He knows he should face Steve, get back to his responsibilities, but the questions of _when_ , of _how_ , seem overwhelming. 

Eventually, the choice is taken out of his hands.

He's at the hospital, his hands inside an incubator to comfort a premature baby girl, when he hears the charge nurse turn on the news.

"—reports coming in that confirm this, I repeat: while the Avengers were engaged in fighting the rogue AI known as Ultron outside of Toronto, Captain America _was_ injured. We don't know the severity of his wounds at this time, but sources say he is at Toronto General—"

"Vera," Bucky calls out, his voice strangled. "Could you take over for me?"

She comes over from where she is watching the news. "What's the matter, hon?"

"I've—I've got family in Toronto."

She bustles over and pushes him aside. "You go on. I got Malaysia, you go an' call your folks."

He pulls off the sterile gown and grabs his sweatshirt. "Lucille," he says, jogging up to the nurses station. "Lucille, I've got to go. The thing in Toronto—"

"I heard," Lucille says. "Go on, get."

He hesitates, his heart in his throat. Footage of Steve in the uniform plays over her shoulder, a burning building falling down on top of his head in a slow-motion, waking nightmare. "I don't know when I'll be back," he says. "I might not be."

She points to the door. " _Go_. You'll come back if you can, and we'll miss you if you can't."

"Thanks." He runs out the door and into the June sunlight. He stands on the sidewalk for a moment, paralyzed with indecision, before the pieces shift in his brain and he's running. He runs all the way to his apartment, tapping into his angelic stamina the way he hasn't in decades, and bursts in the door.

Guns. He'll need his guns. He doesn't know what his reception will be like, among the Avengers, but he can't take any chances. He packs a bag with a change of clothes and his disassembled rifle, grabs his passport, knives, and wallet. He pauses only long enough to slip a note under Nika and Joe's door before he's gone, running for the SEPTA and the wastelands of Far Northeast Philly. He jacks a car outside of an abandoned warehouse and drives north.

It's an achingly long drive. Bucky spends it chasing his mind in circles: what will he say? What will Steve do? What if Steve's—

He turns on the radio to drown out his thoughts, and jerks at the wall of polka that blares from the speakers. He turns it down and finds a decent hip hop station. The bass thuds through the car's frame, vibrating his body; it's perfect. He memorizes all the lyrics he doesn't know until the station cuts out and the Scranton signals take over.

Storm clouds roll in as he passes through Buffalo. Bucky finds himself once again running before the wind, heading north, chasing Steve. He loosens his hands on the steering wheel before he breaks it.

He gets into Toronto in the wee hours of the morning, the sun not yet risen to wash away the low-hanging stars. He ditches the car in an alley in Chinatown and walks to the hospital. An ambulance comes in right before him, carrying a heart-attack patient; he walks into the ER unseen in their wake, and makes his way to the ICU.

Steve's not there. Bucky takes deep breaths to slow his racing heart. _It could mean nothing_ , he tells himself. _He's a super-soldier, he may just have healed up, already_. He slips into the nurses station and checks their records.

_Rogers, Steven G. Transferred to In-Patient care on Dr. Gupta's recommendation. Room 312. (See note on medications.)_

Bucky huffs out a sigh and closes the window. He can feel the bond thrumming beneath his heartbeat, now that he's calmed down. He winces at his foolishness. He finds the nearest stairwell and charges up the floors until the bond flares.

Sam Wilson is waiting outside Steve's door.

"I was wondering if you'd show up," he says. There is a scratch over his eye, almost healed. Dust and blood cling to his clothes.

Bucky is surprised by the flush of hot resentment that floods him. _You're in my spot_ , he thinks. He cringes in shame. "Couldn't exactly stay away."

Wilson barks a laugh. "Ain't that the truth. Well, go on in. Or were you gonna stay out here, looking lost for a while longer?"

Bucky goes in.

Steve is asleep, a nasal cannula looped across his face. Fading burns litter his skin, and parts of his hair are singed down to the scalp. Bucky can smell the caliber of the drugs they've got him on: no less than two IV bags are strung up over the bed. Visions of Steve wracked with agony, the doctors helpless in the face of his metabolism, flash before his eyes, and he lets out a hurt noise. He reaches out to touch Steve's hand.

There's a chair by the bed. It's a hospital special: hard, ergonomically unsound, and he has to perch on the edge of the seat just to reach Steve's arm. He rests his head on the blankets by Steve's hip and runs his fingers over Steve's hand.

It's a strong hand, well-formed, roughened by its trade. Bucky touches the pinky finger. "Ave Maria," he whispers. "Gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedicta fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen." He moves to Steve's ring finger, and the words flow over his tongue. "Ave Maria, gratia plena..."

He goes through the prayers until his voice is rough. He falls silent, wraps his fingers around Steve's, and presses his forehead into the mattress. He sighs, and the soft, easy sound of Steve's breath calms him.

 _Heads up_ , Sam Wilson says in his mind. He lifts his head in time to see the woman with flame-red hair step into the room.

 _Natalia Alianovna_. He remembers her. He tailed behind on several of her missions, tying the loose ends her orders ignored. Once, he recalls, he was set against her in Ukraine. The endgame of that encounter was satisfying, if bittersweet; he was—not glad, per se, but as close to that feeling as the Winter Soldier could come—to hear that she had survived. Likewise, their skirmish in D.C. was, in and of itself, remarkable. He admires her skill. He is suitably wary.

"Winter Soldier," she says, her voice calm and perfectly level.

"Black Widow," he replies, coming to his feet. His composure is... less pristine than hers.

"Have you come to kill him?" She nods toward Steve.

Bucky smiles bitterly. "No."

She watches him for a time. "It crushed him, you know. When he decided to give up the hunt."

Bucky lowers his head, his shoulders pulling in with shame. He wants anything but to show weakness before the Widow, but he has spent nine hours tearing himself to pieces in fear, and he has no armor left. "I had to try to leave. Let him live his own life." He huffs a dry laugh. "Didn't work out so well."

She cocks her head. "Normally I'd say that's codependency disguised as useless romanticism, but..." Her eyes narrow. "You actually can't leave him. That's why you picked Philly. Halfway between New York and D.C."

Of course she knows where he lives. No operative with even half her expertise would lose sight of a threat like the Winter Soldier. Bucky smiles, and feels a shadow of his old self. "We can't be anything but what we were made to be, can we?" he says.

"And what were you made to be?"

He shrugs. "I assume you've read my file, by now."

"Don't play coy," she says, her voice steely. "I was there, in D.C. I saw you light up like a magnesium flare and vanish into thin air. You're not human, Barnes, so what are you?"

He looks over to Steve where he lays, drugged to the gills on Fentanyl. "Do you believe in angels?" he asks softly.

The Widow's gaze sharpens, turns cynical. "You're Steve Rogers's guardian angel. That's the story you're going with."

"I think we can both agree, whatever I once was, I've fallen long and hard."

"Then why are you here?"

He glances to her. She is standing, legs spread, arms crossed, readiness bold in every line of her. "Love is for children," he says, parroting her words back at her. "I owe him a debt."

"Why are you here, James Barnes."

He flinches at the sound of his name. It's ugly, coming from the lips of one who understands what he has done. "I can't not be here."

"I'm sure that'll be a comfort to him, when he wakes and you're gone."

He doesn't question how she figured out his intention to leave; he hadn't fully decided until she said it out loud. He lashes out in frustration. "Is that how it is with you and the Hawkeye? One hundred percent free with each other? That's an arrow on your necklace, so tell me. How hard was it to let him see you? The best man you've known? Your _savior_? Was it easy?"

Her breathing is a hair shallower. He can feel the lay of her heart, and it's thrumming with alarm and unwilling empathy. "That's our business."

"And this is mine. I'm not ready for him to see what I've become, Natalia Romanova." He turns and bends to place a kiss upon Steve's brow. He doesn't care what she sees, anymore; he's leaving. He brushes Steve’s fingers one last time before he pulls away.

"You know I'm going to tell him you came."

He doesn't look back. "Nothing I can do to stop you."

Sam is in the hall, perched uneasily on the edge of his seat. "Thanks for the warning," Bucky tosses out to him.

The drive back to Philadelphia feels like he's tearing his heart in two.

***

He was gone just over seventeen hours, and it's as though nothing has changed. His boss, Mr. Bradley, didn't even know he was gone, and Lucille merely asks if his family was okay. He gives her what he hopes is a decently believable fib. Nika, however, pounds him on the shoulder when she opens her door.

"That's what you get for up and leaving," she says. "I was _worrying_ about your ass."

"I left a note," he says, raising his hands to fend off further attacks.

She drags him inside. "Yeah, and it sounded an awful lot like you was finna kill yourself. 'Don't know if I'll see you again,' 'everything I have goes to you, Joe and Hickory.' Goddamn, boy, but you got drama out your ears, sometimes."

He gives a small smile, one that only widens when he sees Hickory toddling toward him on wobbly legs, Joe behind her, a broad grin on his face. "Hey! Look at you! When did you start walking, huh?" He crouches down for her, and she smiles bright as sunshine all the way to his arms.

Nika snaps a picture of them on her phone. "Last night," she says. "She was doing her usual thing around the coffee table, and I was mashing up peaches and she decided she _wanted_ some of that. Scared me half to death. Joe was laughin' fit to break a rib, but Hickory got him later when she crawled _extra_ hard over his lap." Nika's smile is beatific.

"You see what I gots to deal with," Joe says. He snags his coat from by the door. "I'll leave y'all here," he says. "Took another evening shift. The DOT's short-staffed, but I'll take overtime if they're paying."

"Know how that goes," Bucky replies. He gives him a fist bump; Nika gives him a kiss, and then he's out the door, into the night.

Nika sighs. "Seems we see less and less of each other, anymore," she says.

Bucky grunts. Hickory's reaching up to him, making insistent noises, and he bends to take her hands. He walks her around the room while Nika goes to change. He remembers doing this for all three of his sisters: Rebecca with athletic fervor, Rosie with great reluctance and tears, and Daisy with wide eyes and curious hands. Hickory blows a raspberry and lunges toward Cujo, the family cat. Cujo jumps on top of the couch where Hickory can't reach, tail twitching.

"So how'd it go?" Nika asks from the bedroom, where she's pulling off her waitress uniform for sweats. 

"He was unconscious. They had him on the good stuff."

He can practically hear her eyes roll. "No shit. I meant after, when he woke up."

"I left before then."

There is a moment of silence, then the sounds of clothes being dragged on in great haste. Nika comes barreling down the hall with murder in her eyes. "Uh-uh. No. _Hell_ no. Tell me you didn't leave your boy before he even had time to wake up, tell me you ain't as big a fool as that, James Buchanan Barnes, 'cause if you are, then—then I don't know what I'll do, but you ain't gonna like it."

Hickory pulls free from Bucky's hands to stagger toward her mother, and Bucky steps back. "I'm not ready, Nika," he says, putting his hands in his pockets. "I can't face him seeing me."

"You are the dumbest—why ain't you letting him make up his own mind whether he wants to see you or not, huh? Let's count out your options. One: he sees you, he don't give a rat's ass you was an assassin because he's Captain Goddamn America and he hangs with professional murderers for a living. Two: he decides, 'oh no, this honky I spent all my damn childhood and all of World War II with, and who I wrecked a damn factory for, naw, man, I don't wanna deal with him, he gots all _dangerous_ while I was asleep." She gives Bucky a pointed look before she continues on. "Three: he takes one look at you and turns right back around, because, 'eh, maybe I _don't_ really care about this guy I wrecked a factory for, and chased halfway around the world, and went and _crashed a damn plane into the ice for because I couldn't handle him dying on me_.' Now you tell me, Bucky Barnes. Is Steve Rogers _really_ gonna hate what he sees when he looks at you?"

Silence reigns. Cujo jumps down from the couch to rub against Bucky's ankle, purring loud as an outboard motor. Bucky watches him to keep from looking at Nika. "It's not that simple," he says.

"Why _not_."

"Because he's the best man I know," he grates out. "And he'll look at me like the sun shines out my ass because he's _Steve_ , and all I'll be able to think about is that I killed people for seventy years and I _didn't care_."

Nika's gaze softens. "You care now. Ain't that enough?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know."

They don't say much after that. Nika sits him down on the couch, putting on Star Trek re-runs and feeding him boxed macaroni and cheese while glorifying Nichelle Nichols. She lets Hickory crawl all over him like a jungle gym until it's her bedtime, and when he gets up to go to his graveyard shift she gives him a hug before he steps out the door.

"I don't got all the answers, James," she says. "But you's a good man, even if you can't see it right now. Captain America don't waste his time on lost causes."

Bucky's lips twist. "Steve Rogers does, though. All the damn time."

"And have those causes ever been worthless? Or was they like taking down HYDRA? Did they make a difference?"

 _HYDRA already survived once_ , Bucky thinks, but he doesn't say it. He leaves without answering.

It's a warm night, slipping down towards fall. Bucky looks up at the cloudy sky as he walks to the train station. Did they make a difference? He looks down to the pavement. _They did to me_.

***

Steve Rogers comes to Philadelphia that Friday.

It's a basketball day, overcast and humid, and Bucky's in the middle of negotiating a thicket of opposition when he senses a presence he knows like his own two hands. He falters long enough to lose possession. He turns around, and there's Steve, standing across the street wearing a baseball cap and hoodie and sticking out like a Goddamn sore thumb.

"I'm tapping out," he says, stepping back from the court. "Stick Yasser in the middle."

He catches the look on Yasser's face as he squints first at Steve, then at Bucky, before Bucky turns and walks off the court. Steve waits, hands in his pockets and uncertainty thick in the air. Bucky jogs across the street and steps up onto the curb beside him. He crosses his arms. "Hey, Steve."

"Hey, Buck."

They look at anything but each other. It's almost worse than Bucky imagined. They've never been awkward, not once, and now it's like they've forgotten how they fit together. He scrapes for something to say.

Steve beats him to it. "Why'd you leave?" The words are soft. There's no accusation in them, just humble hurt. Yasser's mother ain't nothin' next to Steve Rogers.

The truth, of course, will never do. "Saw you were outta the woods. No reason to stay."

"Bullshit," Steve says, a note of fire slipping in. "Bucky, I—" he cuts himself off. Looks at his feet and clears his throat before looking back up. "You look like you're doing okay."

Bucky glances down at his ragged cargoes, his beat-up sneakers and his holey wife-beater. His hair is too long and he's gone nearly three days without a shave. Bucky hasn't traded a letter with Steve since 1943, but he still knows how to read between the lines. He steels himself. "Why are you here, Steve."

Steve's smile is cracked about the edges. "Can't a guy see his best friend?"

"Not when his best friend tried to kill him."

Steve's jaw sets. "I don't care about that, Bucky. I'm here to see you, not your past."

"I _am_ my past," Bucky snaps. "Everything I am is defined by my past. You don't like that, then you don't want to see me. And Steve, you _don't_ want to see me."

"No. I don't care what it takes, Bucky, I'm not moving." A roll of thunder punctuates this statement, and they look up simultaneously.

"Your choice," Bucky says. "But it looks like rain." He turns and walks away.

"Why'd you come to the hospital at all, then?" Steve calls after him, and Bucky's heart twists in his chest. He doesn't turn back.

***

Bucky goes to Señora Cecilia the next day. She takes one look at him and points across the rows, toward the clump of people in the southeast corner. "You want to talk, you earn it, first. I have enough to do without you pestering me."

Bucky purses his lips. On the one hand, he really doesn't want to root around in the dirt just because he was feeling out of sorts. On the other, he could really use her advice. He shrugs and heads out to the indicated plot.

They're breaking ground. One of the workers looks him up and down and hands him a pick with no more comment than that. There's a brusque efficiency to the gesture that speaks of long familiarity with la Señora's wayward pilgrims.

He works. His strength is quickly recognized, and he's pressed into clearing away the boulders. The strongest members go in first, himself among them, heaving mattocks to break up the packed earth. Others follow with shovels to soften it. Whenever they hit a rock or an old chunk of pavement, they send Bucky in to ease it out, or to shift it up to a point they can shove levers under it and heave it out the rest of the way. It's backbreaking, but Bucky's back is sturdier than most, and he settles into the rhythm. The sun is hot overhead, and he's pouring sweat before they're through.

" _Gracias_ ," a weather-beaten, mustachioed man says. "It would have taken us three hours more, at least. You and that arm, you are strong."

Bucky holds his metal hand up, flexing it. He can feel it grate where soil snuck into the joints. "Yeah, and I should have covered it up. This is gonna be a bear to clean."

"It is remarkable. You are lucky, to have received so fine a windfall from your misfortune."

Bucky manages a smile. "I'd rather have my arm back."

"Undoubtedly." He gestures back to where Señora Cecilia crouches, methodically weeding the _calabacitas_. "I'm sure she will speak with you now."

"Thanks."

She doesn't even look up at his approach. "If it's troubles in love, I don't have the time."

"Could've fooled me. Can't multitask?"

She squinted up at him. "You grew bold very quickly."

Bucky smirks. "It's one of my charms." He puts his hands on his hips, and his metal arm grates alarmingly. He grimaces. "You owe me an arm, by the way."

"It was you who came to a garden unprepared for gardening. Fix it yourself."

He watches her a while, then sighs, squatting down to pull weeds alongside her. He keeps his metal arm out of the dirt; it's harder, with only one hand, but his flesh hand, at least, will heal. "Steve's back," he says. "Showed up at the courts yesterday."

Señora Cecilia rolls her eyes. "Yes, and how did that make you feel?"

Bucky ignores the sarcasm. "Scared. Threatened. I've known Steve since we were snot-nosed kids, and I nearly killed him last time we met, but he comes up and now I'm afraid of him."

"I am only humoring you out of familial obligation, I hope you recognize this. And you aren't afraid of Steve. You're afraid of what his coming means."

"What's that?"

"Choice. You have a choice coming upon you, Bucky, and we angels are never good with choice."

"What choice."

"Don't be dense. You know what you face better than I."

Bucky sighs, resting his hands on his thighs. "It means whether I go with him, or whether I stay. And... whether or not I take up my Guardianship, again."

"Very good."

He looks out over the garden, at the plants growing higgledy-piggledy, the bare scar of newly broken ground. "What do you think?"

"Ah, no. No. I won't make that choice for you. It is your own."

"I knew you'd say that, you old bag."

"Whatever happened to respect for one's elders?"

"I lost it when you made me hack up your damn garden before telling me pop-psychology bullshit."

She gives him a dark look. "Do they deal much with angels, in pop-psychology?"

Bucky glares at her.

"You're not angry at me, Bucky Barnes, you're angry at your situation and you're taking it out on me. Stop it, or I won't help you even if you re-cultivate the entire garden." She sighs and sits back on her heels.

"You can stay here in Philadelphia," she says, “and continue as you have been. It is good work you are doing. Do you know how long Hal Jefferson has been trying and failing to get clean?"

"A while."

"This is the longest he's stepped away from heroin in ten years. I'm sure his children are glad for it."

Bucky rips up a particularly stubborn dandelion.

"Or," she says, "you can follow your charge. That has the advantage of being what you are supposed to be doing, anyway, at least as far as we know. That said, I won't think less of you if you choose to stay."

"You're not really helping."

"I'm not here to help. I'm here to make your problems clearer, so you can see them for yourself. I've done that, so you can go, now."

Bucky grunts in frustration, but straightens and gives a respectful nod. "See you later, I guess." He turns to go.

"Much later. Oh, and Bucky?"

He looks back.

"These neighborhoods already have many angels. One more from God doesn't hurt, but he is not needed."

***

He's picking grit out of his arm's servos when he hears the knock on his door. He glances to the clock; it's nine at night, and Nika and Joe are out with friends. Hickory is passed out on his bed, and Yasser is with his family, observing Ramadan. He palms shut the access panel and grabs his gun where it sits beside his maintenance kit. He crosses the living room and eases open the door.

It's Steve, his fist poised to knock again, and looking at Bucky with a caught-out expression. "Hey, Bucky."

His hair is close-cropped; Bucky assumes to even it out from where it got burned off. He looks tired.

Bucky narrows his eyes. "You knocked on every door on the block, didn't you."

"I—yeah. Yes."

Bucky turns away from the door, leaving it open. He hears Steve hesitate, then follow him in, easing through and shutting the door behind him. Bucky puts the gun back on the table and lays out his arm once more. He tracks Steve by the sound of his breathing, his footsteps, the shape of him out of the corner of his eye. He seems reluctant to start talking.

"Any particular reason you decided to drop in?" Bucky nudges, slipping a canister of compressed air in between two wires.

"Well, Natasha mentioned you'd visited, but you didn't leave a calling card. Imagine the scandal."

"We're not that old, sweetheart." He winces. _Sweetheart? Really?_

Steve's voice is calm. Steady. "No, we're just old enough to make the really big mistakes."

Bucky stills. "Mistakes, huh."

"Yeah." Steve squares his shoulders. "Not sure yet if they're mine or yours, but I'm feeling petty so I'm thinking yours. Why did you come see me, Buck, if you were only gonna leave again?"

Bucky sets aside the canister and slumps back in his chair. He turns his face away. "Everyone keeps asking me that."

He hears Steve move closer and lean against the kitchen doorway. "What do you tell them?"

Bucky smirks humorlessly. "Depends who's asking."

"I'm asking, now."

Bucky clenches his fists. "Do you even know how blind you can be, Stevie? You don't wanna see something, you don't see it, even if it's plain as the nose on your Goddamned face." He bows his head back over his arm. "You can't afford to be blind about me."

Steve pushes off from the doorframe and walks into the kitchen. Bucky doesn't watch as he pulls out the chair opposite, staring instead down at the exposed wires and gears of his arm, placed like a sacrifice between them. "Now see," Steve says, "I'm not sure where to start on that one, because I don't know if you mean the part where HYDRA kept you as their attack dog for seventy years, or the part where you exploded in D.C., went blind, and then healed hours later only to disappear on me again. I'm curious about both, actually."

"What, didn't Sam tell you?"

Steve's eyes sharpen. "You've been talking to Sam?"

Bucky snorts. "If by 'talking' you mean threatened and ran away from, then yeah. That was a while back. In Kolkata. Didn't exactly keep up the correspondence."

"He said you'd talked. Said you seemed stable enough, that maybe it was time to let you figure things out without us dogging your tail. Starting to think maybe he left out some of the details."

Bucky snorts.

"Alright. You won't tell me. You want me to stop asking, just say so."

Bucky glances up at him, startled. Steve's eyes are open and honest in that horrible way he has, and he's solemn when he speaks. "I'm curious, Buck, but I won't pry. I swear it."

Bucky scoffs, his laughter loud in the tiny kitchen. "That's a joke, Rogers," he says. "A joke. You pull that 'honest-to-God-ma'am' routine, and it makes everyone spill the beans from sheer guilt. I know you, buddy. Try again."

He sees a flicker of hurt in Steve's eyes, but he masks it with a sly grin. "Can't fool you, huh."

"No, Steve, you can't." Bucky fixes him with a steady look, burying his fear and qualms as deep as he can, and does what he swore he would never do: he deliberately pries into Steve's mind. "I know you ate crappy diner meatloaf for dinner, and that it's giving you gas, Captain America or no. I know you've been looking at rosaries, some kind of apology or something, but none of them _fit_ , yet. I know you ain't been sleeping well at night, Steve. Do you want me to list your nightmares? Because I can do that, too." He forces himself to a halt, horrified by himself, and by the blank shock on Steve's face.

"How...?"

He shoves himself out of his chair with an anguished noise, putting as much distance between him and Steve Rogers as he can. His breath comes short and shallow, and bile rises in the back of his throat. "I'm a fucking angel, Steve," he says. "That's the big secret. I'm an angel of the Goddamned Lord, and _look_ at me. I—" he looks down as his hands, one shaking like a leaf, the other rock-steady. "I'm fucking _broken_. I was sent to Earth to guard and protect, and I ended up using holy gifts to slaughter innocents."

He barely registers Steve getting up, circling around him; barely registers the disbelief splintering through Steve's mind. "Bucky, what—"

Bucky spins to face him. "No, of course you don't believe me," he says. He can feel himself losing control, can feel the power bubbling up under his skin. Señora Cecilia would have choice words about flying before he can run. "Angels aren't actually _real_ , right? They're storybook creations, platitudes to keep the chill away—"

Steve reaches out to touch him, and the scarcest brush of his fingers against his arm has Bucky flinching away, retreating until his back slams into the wall. He gasps; his power slips free from him, and light filters out from his skin, banishing all his scars and blemishes and rendering his metal arm a dark shadow against the brilliance of his manifestation. His wings spread and mantle, but they do not blister his flesh; his eyes see into the depths of the man before him, but they do not weep in self-inflicted agony. He finds himself stepping into the Attitude of Abjection. His voice echoes, soft and reverberant all at once. "'And the angels which kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, He hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the great Day.'"

He stands bare before Steven Grant Rogers for the third time, and the power of the Most High flows through the ley lines of his being. Steve's face is washed smooth in the radiance, his blue eyes flaring bright, but he does not turn away in pain, nor is he immolated; he stands witness to the Revelation of an angel. Bucky hears as from a great distance the thrum of the Host, and the bliss of his true form; and he feels himself flicker, though his mortal flesh anchors him. Fear and awe rise in Steve's heart. Bucky whispers, "Be not afraid."

They stand in perfect tableau until the thin whimper of a child cuts through it, and Bucky comes back to himself. "Hickory," he breathes. He snuffs his power, and darkness crashes down. He hears Steve's surprised breath. He runs into the bedroom. "Hickory? You okay?"

She's standing in the doorway, eyes shining with tears, and her expression when she looks at him is fearful. "Hey, hey," he says, kneeling in front of her. "It's okay, sweet girl, you're okay." He reaches out, sick with shame, and brushes against her cheek. "It's just me. I'd never hurt you, Hickory. You're safe."

She reaches out to him, her face uncertain and scared, but trusting of this familiar adult, and Bucky scoops her into his arms. "I'm so sorry," he whispers into her hair. She wraps her chubby arms around his neck and burrows beneath his chin. Her breath is hot and damp against his skin. He paces around the bedroom, rocking her back and forth, humming under his breath.

She's getting bigger. Soon she'll be too big to carry. The thought makes him... wistful. And sad. It's never easy, seeing the impermanence of humanity, despite having spent nearly a century immersed in human frailty. _It's always worse after a manifestation_ , he reminds himself.

Hickory settles after a time, but Bucky can't bring himself to put her down, so he carries her out into the living room. Steve is sitting on the couch, staring at the far wall. Bucky swallows. He imagines it's a lot to take in, learning that your closest, most intimate friend is an angel on top of being an assassin. He looks up when Bucky treads on the squeaky floorboard, and his eyes widen when he sees Hickory. Bucky watches him do the math in his head.

"Is she...?"

Bucky can't quite muster up a smile. "No. She's my next-door neighbors'. They wanted a night off, and I offered to take care of her." He looks down at the top of Hickory's head, but all he can see is the fuzzy nub of her pigtail. He sits in the old man rocking chair, tucking in Hickory's legs as he does. "God. She's almost one and a half." Silence settles uneasily over the room.

Steve looks away. "Zola didn't inject you with the serum, did he."

Bucky clears his throat, forcing back memories. "Not really, no. I, uh. Didn't respond so well to working with the tesseract, and he noticed." He rubs Hickory's back. "I think he was trying to use me to improve what he already had." Bucky snorts. "Fat lot of good it did him. My blood's as human as they come."

Steve gives him a quizzical look, and Bucky stares at the stained carpet. "My body is human. I was born, I bleed, eventually I will die. It's just my spirit that's different."

"An angel."

"Yeah."

Suddenly, Steve starts laughing. "You—you remember that time you came in dead drunk, and the next morning I walked in and asked you if you believed in angels and you spit coffee everywhere? God, you looked like you'd been caught with your hand in the cookie jar. I thought you were rubbing one out under the table."

Bucky wrinkles his nose. "Not in the kitchen. Not in your _mother's_ kitchen."

Steve shrugs. "You've done worse. Remember—"

Bucky can't stifle his embarrassed groan. "No. Stop talking."

Steve smirks, but then it fades. "Guess that was a doozy of a conversation, for you."

"It was interesting, all right."

Steve frowns, remembering. "And the dream..." His eyes flick to Bucky's.

"A true dream. It was my Seeing, the... prophecy, I guess, that's made before an angel is invested in a body. And before you ask, I don't know why you dreamed it. You shouldn't have. I—" he looks down at Hickory. Her eyelids are slipping shut. "I think I forced it on you."

Steve stares at his knees for a while. Bucky starts getting jittery, and rocks the chair to soothe his nerves. "You should probably go," he says.

Steve looks up at him, and Bucky _tsks_ in exasperation.

"Steve. Buddy. You just found out your best friend is an angel. Go think about things for a while." He keeps his tone light, but his heart is a stone in his chest.

Steve huffs out a sigh. "Yeah. I'll..." he glances to Bucky. "I'll see you later."

Bucky lets him walk out the door, and stares at it until his legs go numb from Hickory's weight. He sighs. "C'mon, runt, let's get you back to bed." She makes a faint noise of displeasure when he stands, and burrows into his chest. "Yeah, I know, but trust me, the bed'll be a lot comfier."

He tucks her in, then goes back to the kitchen. The cleaning kit sits out on the table, forgotten. He stares at it. He can still smell Steve's scent lingering in the air, and his shoulders sag. He puts the gun in the tallest cabinet where Hickory can't reach and flicks off the light. He can finish with the arm in the morning.

He sleeps on the couch, the smell of Steve rich in his nose, and he's restless the whole night. He dreams he's in the bathtub in Sarah Rogers's tiny apartment, soaked and shivering, and Arnim Zola hovers over him with the wings of the seraphim. "Fear not," he says in his precise, fussy accent. "For thou hast found grace with God."

He wakes to Nika pounding on his door. "Open this door, James Barnes, you rotten bastard, or I'mma put Reddi-Wip in your shaving cream."

He groans, hauls himself upright, and staggers to the door. "Hold on, you damn harpy," he mutters, undoing the deadbolt.

"You look like you met a Mack truck face to face," she says by way of greeting, pushing in.

He squints against the morning light. "You look like you went ten rounds with Godzilla."

"And you ain't seeing any giant lizards around, are you? How's Hickory?"

Bucky cocks his head, listening. "Out like a light. She had a rough night."

"I ever tell you how creepy it is, when you do that?" She spots the maintenance kit, still spread over the kitchen table. She looks back to the nine pound bags dragging under his eyes. She tightens. "Looks like she wasn't the only one who had a rough night. What happened?"

"Steve came over."

"Steve as in Steve Rogers?"

Bucky nods, and Nika watches him uncertainly. "It didn't go well?"

"Not really. I think... I'm gonna leave. Again." 

She gives him the hairy eyeball. "You couldn't have waited 'til I was awake to have this conversation?"

Bucky shrugs.

"Yeah, okay. When you headed out?"

"Probably tomorrow. Catch the train up to New York."

"Good. Enough time for you to make that chili, again."

She collects her daughter and staggers back to her apartment, and Bucky puts together the ingredients for the chili. It's a quiet day. He calls in to the junk yard to quit, and to the hospital to give his notice. It's odd, he thinks, the number of connections he builds up when he doesn't have Steve around. He pours in a can of beans and stirs.

He doesn't go to New York right away. First he goes south, to D.C. He's heard Peggy Carter lives there, in a rest home for those with Alzheimer's and dementia. It's a tasteful building, decorated with dark woods and calm colors. He fibs his way through, _pushing_ the staff to think she has a distant cousin she'd forgotten to put on her paperwork. They show him to her room.

"She may be sleeping," they say. "She may not remember you. If you need help, just push the call button."

"Thank you," he says, and _pushes_ them away.

She's asleep. He sees her brain: it's tired, worn. Swathes of neurons have died away, leaving voids of memory in their wake. The rest try to compensate, but it's a losing battle. He sighs and sits in the chair by the bed. There's a small cherry grove outside her window. The trees are heavy with fruit.

It's the work of a moment to create a mesh of power and settle it over her mind. Connections snap to attention, impulses tracking through pathways so worn and familiar that their hastily patched-together replacements simply don't suffice. Once again her brain flickers into the mind Bucky remembers from seventy years before. He shifts in his seat and waits.

He's there most of the afternoon. He nudges the orderlies away from the door when he can, and nudges them to forget about him when he can't. All through it Peggy sleeps, her brain reacquainting itself with its own function.

She wakes when the sun is slipping down toward the horizon.

"Bucky?"

He turns from the window. "Hello, Peggy," he says.

Her eyes are sad, but wondering. "Am I dead, then?"

Bucky's lips twist. He reaches to take her hand with his left. "Not as far as I know."

Her breath catches, and she runs her fingers over the grooves in the metal. "How—" she cuts herself off. "Steve. Does Steve know you're alive?"

"Yeah. He, uh." He ducks his head. "He got me out."

Her eyes narrow. "Got you out from where?"

Bucky's smile is crooked. "HYDRA wasn't as dead as we thought. They found me, after I fell. Kept me for a lab rat."

Peggy is having none of it. "You're far too young for that to be the entire story." Her eyes widen. "They finished the serum, didn't they."

"No, they didn't. You can rest easy about that." Bucky huffs a sigh. "I told him, I guess it won't hurt if I tell you, too. I'm an angel." He watches her reaction.

"An angel."

"Yeah."

"And you expect me to simply believe that? Barnes, if HYDRA has caused lasting damage—"

He smiles sadly. "No, Peggy. Think. Think about your earliest memory. Think about touching your toes three times fast. Recite your last three addresses." He pauses. "It's easy, isn't it."

Her face goes white; her mouth drops open in an 'o'. "What... Is this you?"

"Yeah. Won't last once I go, but for now at least, you'll remember."

She stares at him, and he sees comprehension set in. He doesn’t expect her tears. They come slowly, then all at once—and then she’s choking through jagged sobs that shake her frail body. Bucky’s heart twists. "Hey, hey now,” he says. “It'll be alright."

"James Barnes, you're a fool if you believe that," she says, and cries harder. He sits crosswise next to her on the bed and folds her in his arms. He lets her cry. She quiets quickly, her body too tired to hold very much passion, anymore.

"I don't want to forget, again," she murmurs.

"It can be a mercy," Bucky says.

"Yes," Peggy replies, her cheeks blotchy in the fading sunlight. "Except it makes remembering that much harder. Sometimes I think it's my heart that's failing, Bucky, not my mind. I wake and I don't know where I am; I think the Russians have me, and I attack my own children out of fear. I wake, and I remember Steve, but I can't remember that he survived and I think I'm going insane, seeing ghosts. He always sets me to rights, of course. And then there are the days I wake and I remember it all. Those days are the very worst." A tear slips down her cheek. She looks up at Bucky. "Can you take it away? Can you heal me?"

Bucky swallows, but won't turn away from her. Not for this. "No. I'm sorry. I can't change a person's path. I did that once, and it scarred me. I couldn’t do it again even if I tried."

"Steve," she sighs.

Bucky nods, unable to speak past the knot in his throat.

She takes his hand in her own, gnarled fingers. They're so fragile, like a bird's bones layered under warm silk. She shakes his hand a little. "Make him happy," she says. "I can't anymore." He sees a litany of memories flit through her patched-together mind: Steve, smiling. Steve, hiding his tears. Steve, gutted. Her own pain at causing it. Her frustration at knowing his face, yet not knowing. He bows his head.

“I’ll try,” he says.

They hold hands until she falls asleep. Bucky quietly leaves, the cherry trees swaying gently outside the window.


	7. Chapter 7

He gets into Brooklyn after nightfall. The lights of Manhattan glitter on the East River, sending rippling patterns over the waterfront. He finds a 24-hour motel and pays for a room for the night. He disassembles and cleans his guns, spreading them out across the bed, and sleeps in the chair.

He supposes he should find Steve. He can feel the tug of the bond, drawing him south. He keeps close to the streets of his childhood, instead.

They’re not the same streets. The alleys are cleaner, the air fresher. No longer is there a pall of coal soot hanging in the air, the smudges of it darkening windows and lintels. There is no garbage piled in the streets. He thinks of Philadelphia, of the Brooklyn of the 1930s, and he tamps back his irrational anger at the affluence he sees around him.

He falls back into old habits. He walks, and rediscovers Brooklyn. There's so little left that's familiar: a church, an apartment block that used to be a warehouse. He remembers seeing Italian and Greek on the shop signs in Prospect Park; now if there's any language but English, it's Hebrew. The geography of his city has shifted, and he can't say it's his city any longer. 

It's almost by accident that he finds Steve's apartment, out in Red Hook in one of those repurposed warehouses. 

Half-formed memories flood his mind, of breaking mission parameters, of earth-shattering shock, of seeing Steve silhouetted in the scope of his rifle ( _saluting him, in armor—hunched over a desk, fingers edging toward a sketchbook—_ ).

The security on the apartment is laughable. It's an ancient building, the modern renovations just a patch over a creaking foundation. The radiator rattles under the living room window, and steam has warped the wood to a point where Bucky can wedge his knife in and pry it open. The lock catches; his metal arm ripples, and the lock breaks away. He clambers inside and starts to explore.

There isn't much of Steve, here. The walls are exposed brick on one side; no pictures grace them. Bucky thinks of their apartment in DUMBO, with its sketches and postcards and drying watercolors tacked or taped up wherever there was room, and Bucky feels a wash of... wistfulness, he supposes. He finds the desk Steve was sitting at; it's covered in dust. Everything is dusty, a fine layer of grime showing how little time Steve has spent here.

He sleeps on the couch and drinks Steve's milk before it goes bad. He gives the TV one uncertain glance: it's a shiny flatscreen, painfully modern, and the label shouts _STARK_ as it slants toward the far edge. Bucky passes it over for the bookcases. Mostly it's American history and politics, but there's some fiction as well: Asimov, Norton, Herbert, Le Guin. He reads the backs, and smothers a fond grin. Same old Steve. He settles on a mystery novel he finds stuffed in the corner, a dog-eared, neglected title by someone named Hillerman. It's a far cry from Dick Tracy, but it passes the time.

Steve doesn't come home for nearly a week. Bucky waits for him, sitting on the couch and fidgeting for hours at a stretch. It's unpleasantly like his first months in Philadelphia. He can't bear the thought of facing the new Brooklyn, so he exhausts himself with calisthenics on the living room floor, then takes absurdly long showers in the private bathroom. Steve's pantry is empty; Bucky contemplates going for groceries, but settles on delivery instead.

Steve comes back on a Saturday. It's a day very much like that day in 1925: the summer heat is oppressive, and the smells of the city rise in a noisome cloud (though Bucky remembers it being a hell of a lot worse). The asphalt sticks to his shoes when he goes out for a new bottle of shampoo.

When Steve walks in it's with the heavy, sweaty trudge endemic to all muggy days. He looks like a different person, with his close-cropped hair and week of stubble. Bucky, sitting at the table with a mug of sludge-like stove-top coffee, straightens. Steve freezes halfway through setting down his keys.

"Heya," Bucky says, his smile wobbly. He lowers his mug. "Do you believe in angels, Steve?"

Steve follows through on his aborted motion, and the keys clack against the counter, loud in the strained silence. "Goddamn it, Buck," he says quietly.

Bucky looks back to his mug, his mouth pulling up in a lopsided, wry smile. "Not my fault you took it delicate."

Steve's eyes are crinkling at the corners. He ducks his head. "Jerk."

"Fink." Bucky swallows. "And, uh. You didn't answer my question."

He huffs, running a hand over his head, like he can’t get used to how short his hair is. "Yeah, Bucky. I guess I do." He pulls out the other chair and sits. His eyes broadcast his emotions so loud Bucky doesn't need to read his heart.

"Okay, okay, I get it, you're happy to see me," he says. "Cap those baby blues, will you? They're lethal weapons."

Steve blinks, twice, three times, and awkwardly looks down at his lap. "Sorry."

Bucky mentally kicks himself. The silence stretches long between them like pulled taffy. Bucky scrapes for anything to say. "So... How 'bout them Dodgers?"

Steve's smile is sudden and beautiful, and Bucky can't help the way he stares. "Dunno, Buck. Can't seem to find 'em. They're not where we left 'em, that's for sure."

"Do you remember that game we went to? I remember we'd saved up for weeks—"

"And we slaughtered the Phillies," Steve finished, grinning. "Yeah, I remember. Second-best day of my life."

Bucky's breath stutters. His heart falters. "What was the first?"

Steve meets Bucky’s gaze, his face somber. "The day I pulled you out of that HYDRA base."

Bucky takes a ragged breath. "Not when you met me?" He tries for a cocky smile, but it's shaky. It wouldn't convince anyone, let alone Steve Rogers.

"No offense, Bucky, but I didn't even know you, then." Steve's smile is wry. It fades quickly. "The entire way on that plane I kept saying to myself, 'Please God, let him be alive.' And you were, and I was so glad I almost couldn't breathe." He looks down at his hands.

"Why did you leave, Buck? Not at the hospital, I mean before. After I—we found you. In the alley."

It takes Bucky a moment to place when he means, and when he does he frowns at his mug. "I had to go," he says. "I barely knew who you were. You hurt to be around, like... like an itch I couldn't scratch."

Steve's brow furrows, and he looks away, his mouth working. He nods.

Bucky shrugs. "Took me a while to remember myself, too," he says. "Did you know, I'd forgotten I was an angel?"

Steve blinks at him. "I'm not sure whether you're pulling my leg or not," he says slowly.

Bucky snorts, but it doesn't feel all that funny. "No joke. Took Wilson to remind me, but I didn't believe it until I started having nightmares about the Host."

"When was this?"

"Well, Sam told me back in Kolkata, but I knew there was something different about us when you pulled me out of that alley."

"Wait, wait," Steve says, his face gone white. "Sam's an angel, too?"

"Uh. We're not technically supposed to talk about it, but... Kind of, yeah."

Steve's sits for a moment, glassy-eyed with shock. "I—I thought..." He clears his throat, his gaze hardening; he pulls out his phone and pokes at the screen aggressively for a few moments, then tosses it on the table. "We're going to have a discussion about holding back relevant information from the team. He won't like it. I've heard I'm excellent at guilt trips."

"...Ah."

They lapse back into silence. It's Steve who eventually breaks it. "So, I'm moving into Stark Tower," he says.

Bucky smirks. "You mean Avengers Tower?"

"Stark Tower," Steve repeats firmly.

"Thought you were already living there."

Steve glances around his apartment. "Thought I'd make it official. Been spending less and less time here, and Brooklyn's..." he trails off.

Bucky nods, staring down at his lukewarm coffee. "Yeah."

"Wanna help me pack?"

"Not really, no."

"Great. I'll get some boxes from the liquor store tomorrow. You can do the books."

"Fuck you, Rogers."

***

They pack up the apartment over the course of a week, and dither a week more. It's nice, almost like when they were kids. Bucky remembers feeling so old, then. He laughs now, to think of it. It's not a good laugh.

Steve tries to get him to go to a therapist. It's a new battle between them, one that so far Bucky's managed to negotiate to a stand-still. "What'll a head-shrinker do for me, huh?" he asks. "They've never seen a head like mine. Sam's fine. He's got me spotted." Bucky doesn't tell him he'd rather rip off his other arm than spend time in Sam's presence.

Steve looks uncertain, but Bucky's right—no psychiatrist would know what to make of him. _Steve_ barely knows what to make of him; Bucky's starting to recognize (and to really hate) the look on Steve's face that means he's running up against the reality that Bucky's an angel. It's carefully neutral on the outside, but Bucky reads his nervousness and guilty wistfulness like he's a book left open on the table. He reflects bitterly that only the truth could injure so much.

"It'd be better if I wasn't here," he mutters. "I can go."

"Be better if my best friend wasn't a self-sacrificing idiot," Steve says around a mouthful of beef and mustard sandwich.

"Oh, _that's_ rich," Bucky snaps, and they're off.

They fight more, now. All told, Bucky doesn't think he likes the future very much.

***

Thing is, Steve needs therapy, too. He goes to a shrink regular as clockwork, but he doesn't open up like he should, not since the last one turned out to be a HYDRA operative.

Bucky watches him sling the shield over his back for a trip to the grocery store and reflects that they're a matched pair.

***

They move into Avengers Tower. It's not Brooklyn, but if he's being honest Bucky has to admit a rent-free apartment in the heart of the city is a lot better than the crummy one-bedroom Steve had been leasing. He's still a Brooklyn boy at heart, but that Brooklyn is dead and gone; Manhattan, at least, was never their home.

They've started—Stark calls it cuddling, and Steve laughs at Bucky's disgusted faces. He slaps him on the back, saying, "S'okay, Buck, I won't tell anyone you're getting soft in your old age." Steve has this wild notion that Bucky's touch-starved. Hell, maybe he is; so long as it means he can press himself against Steve while they're watching TV and listen to the metronome beat of his heart ( _lub-dub_ , now, no leaky valves), Steve can call it whatever he wants.

They're like that, flopped on the couch, their feet tangled together—Bucky with a new e-reader and Steve with an old sketchbook—when an almighty crack of thunder rattles the Tower. Bucky frowns; it's a cloudless day, and Manhattan is a no-fly zone—he stills.

There is a power hovering directly above them that he hasn't felt since Germany. Since the tesseract. He pushes Steve's legs off and stands. From a distance he hears Steve's talking, sees him reach out to him, but Bucky is already headed for the elevator.

Decades of hiding have given him skill in masking his signature. It is clear that who- or whatever touched down on Stark's landing pad has no such inhibition. The elevator doors shut on Steve's frantic face. Bucky readies himself for battle. The facing mirrors Stark installed reflect his glowing figure a thousand-fold, his white-bright eyes fierce in his human face. He has no weapons; so be it. His mortal limbs, metal and flesh alike, shall serve. He clenches his fists and an infinity of suns shine from his hands.

The doors open. He stalks out into Stark's penthouse, wreathed in holy silence and the mantle of God's blessing to face his foe.

He quails. A being far greater in might than himself stands in the foyer, energy crackling off broad shoulders like sparks from a broken transformer. Bucky settles into the Attitude of Sacrifice and raises his fists.

"What is this, Stark?" a mighty voice demands. "You bring one of the Fallen into your hall?"

Bucky's thoughts stutter, and he misses Stark's reply. He falls back into Confusion, his fingers flickering through a dozen iterations before settling on Embarrassment and Contrition. "Apologies, High One," he says, and lets his battle flare wane. In tandem the Dominion loosens his hand on his power, and the smell of electricity fades from the air.

"You are no fallen angel," the Dominion says. "I see your duty in your heart. But why are you here? Why is your spirit darkened?"

"Wait wait wait," Stark says, bulling his way between them. "Thor. Bucky. You two know each other?"

"Of course not," the Dominion says. "There are far too many servants of Wyrd for all to know each other."

Bucky fights back the urge to salute. "Rauða-Þórr," he says, bowing his head. "We served against each other in the Battle for Scandinavia. I am—was, Baruchiel, of the legion of Christ."

Thor's brow clears. "Ah! That was a great battle!"

"Yeah, it was," Bucky says, his smile feeling brittle, but genuine. "Not too easy on the mortals, but, yeah. No hard feelings for the win?"

"I assure you, it was an unimportant part of our holdings. I take no offense to a battle fairly won."

The elevator doors ding open, and Steve runs out, still in his pajama bottoms but carrying the shield. "Bucky!"

"Captain Rogers!" Thor booms out. "This _vættr_ is your companion?"

"Did he just—are you really—" Stark splutters on the sidelines. Bucky spares him no attention.

Steve stops dead. "You know he's an angel?"

"What the everliving fuck," Stark says.

"He came out in full battle flare, it was difficult to miss," Thor says with good humor. "Besides, I can read his devotion to you written plain in his heart."

Bucky rubs the back of his neck; Steve blushes. He hefts the shield awkwardly. "So, how do you know each other?"

"We were foes, for a time," Thor answers.

Steve glances to Bucky, his eyes wide. "Wait—you two fought?"

Bucky shrugs. "I fought in the armies of Christianity as a footsoldier. Thor was the commander of his forces for the north."

Stark finds his voice. "Then... hold on, this is blowing my mind. God actually exists?"

It is Thor who answers. "Not as you understand it. They are different concepts in our respective fields, but the ultimate Will, yes, is the same. That Will cares little whether Heathens or Christians gain ground over the other. Such are the petty foibles of lesser beings, not the concerns of... God."

"So, you're an angel, too?" Steve looks desperately confused, and just desperate. Bucky goes and rests a hand on his shoulder.

Thor laughs. "No, my friend, I am not."

"But you just said—"

"Baruchiel would perhaps call me a member of the second choir. In truth I am closer in nature to your ancestor spirits, though greatly more powerful. Now, come. Let us speak more in comfort, for it has been a long journey and I'm sure Stark's alcohol has been left too long in neglect."

"Hey! I'll have you know I am a very hard drinker!"

Thor gives him a doubtful look. "Perhaps a child of Asgard might agree, but not by any warrior's standard. Have I ever told of the time I drank so deeply that it created Asgard's tides?"

"That's a load of shit," Stark says, dragging out his Scotch collection. " _That_ , my friend, is Animal House talking, and I refuse to believe it until I see it."

Bucky tugs Steve's arm, and draws them back to the elevator.

Steve looks shell-shocked. "So when they say Thor's a god—"

"They're still wrong," Bucky says. "They were more like colonizing spirits. Don't think about it too hard, Steve. Catholicism is as true as any path."

"So not very, then."

Bucky shakes him gently. "No, _very_. God is the one God, and the Christ was a prophet imbued with Grace as His son, and he rose after three days. He spoke words that still speak to millions. But the followers of the elder ways in Scandinavia, their beliefs were true, also."

"But how can that—"

"Didn't I just say to forget about it?" Bucky says. "Religious tolerance is a wonderful thing. You keep going to Mass, Thor will make blót, and I'll quote scripture out of context. We'll all go home happy."

***

He thinks that's the end of his interactions with Thor. Beings of his caliber and beings of Bucky's simply don't interact, in the other planes; Archangels rule over the lesser charges, but they don't fraternize with them. He keeps that at the forefront of his thoughts whenever their paths cross.

It makes it harder, when he learns how damned _nice_ Thor is.

At first, he's annoyed by everything about him. Annoyed that he has blue eyes and blond hair ( _Steve has blue eyes and blond hair_ , that _fucking_ little voice whispers), annoyed that he's loud, annoyed (but definitely not intimidated) that Thor is taller than he is and twice as wide. But Thor's persistent geniality wears through his prickly exterior, and Bucky learns that Thor, son of Odin, bears an inexpressible quality of stillness that Bucky finds, despite himself, peaceful. He, like Bucky, is a warrior of the planes; he knows the strain an angelic mind can come under, for Asgardians are corporeally bound. His movements are smooth and precise, and they never startle Bucky the way Stark’s or sometimes even Steve's do. There is a deep compassion behind his eyes and a wisdom that leaves Bucky humbled.

He tries to keep out of Thor's way as much as he can, as befitting his low rank.

Thor won't let him.

"Sergeant Barnes!" he calls out, his voice booming through the entry hall. "I have heard from Captain Rogers that you play the Midgardian game of basketball. I would have you play a round with me!"

Bucky carefully puts the empty frying pan back on the rack. "Why would I want to do that?"

"Because you and I are a warriors and we must keep our fighting edge, even if that be by sport," Thor says, coming around the corner. He looks faintly ridiculous, though his work-out clothes are ordinary in every way. Having made his initial impression of Asgard's Prince, Bucky finds it difficult to imagine Thor out of full armor. Shorts and a t-shirt seem absurd.

Bucky looks down at the stove. His restlessness has come back, and he had just started cleaning to settle himself. Better a game of basketball than busting his knees scrubbing out the oven (Stark swore backwards and forwards it was self-cleaning, but Bucky couldn't make himself believe it).

He lobs the sponge toward the sink. "Sure. Just let me get changed. Which court are we at?"

"Court three. I will await you there."

"Cool."

Bucky allows himself a moment of nerves (he is going up against the most powerful being that he has ever met, barring the Archangels themselves, which he has seen only from a distance). He doesn't hold a great deal of hope that Thor will go easy on him, but Bucky is used to playing games six-on-one. He ties his shoes, pulls back his hair and heads for the elevator.

Court three is the smallest of the courts, and the least used. Natalia frequents it most, taking advantage of the climbing wall, but she is absent. Only Thor is there, standing in the middle and examining the ball.

"It is rudimentary compared to those on Asgard," he says, and slams it down into a furious bounce. He grins. "But it does bounce most pleasingly."

"They didn't bounce at all when I learned," Bucky says, walking up to catch the ball on its descent. He dribbles experimentally a few times before catching the ball and glancing to Thor. "You know the rules?"

"Insofar as they apply to 'one-on-one.' Stark's AI was most helpful."

Bucky nods. "Right then. Play ball!" He dodges around Thor, quick as a whip, and nets his first basket.

"Unsportsmanlike!" Thor laughs, and snatches the ball out of the air when Bucky tries a jump shot.

The contest is long and bloody. Thor learns quickly, shooting hoop after hoop, and Bucky has to admit basketball really isn't his sport. He has the advantage of speed, but Thor has greater height. They patter, though, and that comes easy as breathing.

"Come on, big guy, you think you can take me? My grandmother had a better lay-up than that!"

"You Midgardians think too highly of yourselves, if this is the opposition you present!"

"That's how it is, huh? You know I'm actually older than you? You should respect your elders."

"I do respect them. It is why I haven't beaten you yet, out of respect for your infirmity."

The game ends in a stalemate. They trek back to the public area, and they sit on Stark's kitchen chairs so they don't sweat all over the sofa. Thor is pensive. "I would have you accompany me, tomorrow, if it is not too great an imposition," he says. "I am yet learning of this realm, and I would have you by my side as I further my education."

Bucky is taken aback. "Okay?" he says. "Why me?"

"Three reasons. One: in many ways, this world is as foreign to you as it is to me. We will be on equal footing. Two: you are my kin, you and Sergeant Wilson, but Sam has responsibilities that demand his time, nor is he a stranger in this land. And three," Thor says, resting his elbows on the table, "I think you will enjoy it. You have spent far too much time in this tower."

Bucky scowls, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. "You know, it's funny: Steve says the same thing. He put you up to this?"

Thor is unruffled. "He mentioned it, but I assure you, the idea and the manifestation of it are my own. You forget, Bucky, that I can see your heart. It is hurt, my friend, and your spirit gravely injured. I would help."

"Anyone ever tell you your nose is too damn big for your own good?"

Thor's smile is sad. "Yes. Many times."

Bucky glares at him over the table. Steve still wants him to get some kind of help, but no human therapist _can_ , no matter what Steve says about PTS-whatever and how shell-shock is an actual diagnosable disorder, now, not just a sign of weakness. Bucky isn't human.

But neither is Thor. Perhaps he understands what's wrong in Bucky's brain, and unlike Sam, he isn't cutting in between him and Steve. _You should really cut Sam some slack_ , the little voice says. _He's just doing his job_. Bucky ignores it. Thor wants to help; maybe Bucky should let him.

"Alright," he says. "Fine. You wanna have a go at patching me up, be my guest."

Thor's smile is restrained; he senses Bucky's recalcitrance. "Excellent. I plan to leave by eight-thirty; we will meet here, if that is acceptable."

"Yeah, it's 'acceptable.' Jesus." Bucky scrubs a hand through his hair. "Fuck, I need a shower."

He ignores Thor's farewell and stalks down the hall to the elevator. He stays in his room for the rest of the day, stewing and angry. It isn't the anger of angels; this is petty and small, mixed with self-pity and self-loathing. He is angry at himself as much as he is by anything Thor said or did. Steve comes in around four and knocks on Bucky's door, but Bucky doesn't respond.

He's had enough of earnest superheroes trying to fix him.

***

"I have come to enjoy coffee," Thor says, slurping a mocha frappuccino. "Though I understand it has a stimulating effect in humans. Is that so?"

Bucky shrugs, hands in his pockets. "I always had to brew it to mud to feel it."

Thor hums around the straw. "They certainly speak often enough of its bolstering power."

Bucky snorts. "You really that curious, I'll make you some. I'm warning you though: it tastes like tar and burns like lye going down."

"That does not seem healthy."

"Kept us alive in the war. When we could get it."

He senses a question rise in Thor's mind, and rather than let him ask it, Bucky cuts him off. "So, where are we going, anyway?"

Thor changes tack without so much as a flinch. "Tony tells me of a great library in this area, part of a publicly viewable collection. He called it a 'museum,' I think. The Museum of Natural History. Perhaps you have heard of it?”

Bucky snorts. "Yeah, I've heard of it. Went to it once, too, back in '28." He had dreamed of the Hall of Birds for weeks after.

They're walking north, up through Central Park. The leaves are the shifting green of late summer, and the joggers are in full force. Dogs bark; Frisbees fly; a group of buskers play Piazzola by the side of the path. They walk on.

The American Museum of Natural History has changed since Bucky saw it last. The dinosaurs certainly have—the T-Rex's tail no longer drags on the ground, for one. Bucky shakes his head. Apparently they had feathers.

The dioramas have changed less. Thor drinks it all in, occasionally asking if Bucky has ever seen this or that animal in the flesh. Bucky almost hates to say no. "Sorry to say it, but the wildest animal I've seen is a goat, and that's 'cause we were pressed up against them."

"Ah. I was unaware of your... fondness for goats."

"What—! No! We were riding in a goat truck! You _ass_!"

"That is what you _tell_ me, but—"

"Okay, you know what? Fine. We were behind enemy lines because there was a bunker that the brass thought might be a research base for HYDRA. We went out, trashed it—it wasn't, by the way—and got the Hell out of Dodge. Only, our ride got blown up by friendly fire. Perils of driving a German supply truck behind German lines. So, we hoofed it. Walked fifteen miles uphill both ways in the snow, young man, and once we got past the Maginot line, which was a bucket of fun all its own, we managed to find a goat farmer heading the way we were going. We hitched a ride and didn't bitch about it, because we'd already walked halfway across the German countryside."

He holds a finger up in Thor's face. "And I never touched that goat, I swear—even though she was persistent and wouldn't take no for an answer."

A passing tourist gives him a wary look. Thor, meanwhile, is laughing at him. "It is a fine story, my friend—though perhaps unfair to the goat!"

Bucky walks away to look at the duikers.

It takes him an embarrassingly long time to figure out that Thor is getting him to talk, one anecdote at a time. He's willing to admit, if only in the privacy of his own mind, that it's nice. He's held so many thoughts so close to his chest for so long that it’s starting to feel like they're festering around his heart. Steve is too close to be a comfort, and Señora Cecilia too far; but Thor, he has stuck a needle in Bucky's chest and is draining the words right out of him. He doesn't want to think of what will come when it's time for him to speak of the Winter Soldier.

He takes a bite out of his hotdog and doesn't let himself think about it.

***

A person can walk all the way around Manhattan Island, all along the waterfront from Inwood Hill Park to Battery Park and back. Bucky runs it every morning. One lap is enough to wear him out; two laps are enough to ensure he won't dream that night.

Four weeks after he picks it up, Steve catches up to him at East 33rd Street, a mischievous glint in his eye. He paces Bucky for a mile or so, then turns to him, casual as anything, and says, "Race you!" He takes off like a shot, running down the path and dodging strollers and food carts before he disappears around the bend. Bucky stumbles a moment, losing his stride. Then he swears and takes up the chase.

He wonders for a moment what they look like, two mooks sprinting full-tilt down the street, laughing and shouting insults back and forth. They raise hell as they pass Brooklyn, waving madly at their old neighborhood where it lies framed by the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges.

Bucky's never seen Steve running like this before: no obstruction, no team to keep track of, but more importantly, never set directly against him. He keeps waiting for him to tire, but the serum must be potent, for even as they round Battery Park Steve isn't even red in the face. Bucky lets his reserve slide and _runs_.

They’re neck-and-neck the whole way. Bucky gets a stitch in his side past the George Washington Bridge; he grins in delight. He's _never_ gotten a stitch before. It feels like a knife between the ribs, but he's had worse, and Steve's starting to sweat through his shirt. There's no way he can slow down now.

East 33th finds them stumbling to a stop. Bucky is winded and sweaty, his breath like sandpaper in his throat; he supposes even angelic stamina has to quit, sometime. Super-soldier stamina as well, because Steve is finally, finally, red-faced and gasping. They're both grinning.

"I think it was a tie," Bucky huffs out.

"Nah," Steve gasps. "You lost and just don't want to admit it."

"Go play tag with a truck," Bucky replies.

"Truck'd lose, too."

They stagger home, stopping to buy water at a pharmacy and guzzling it down right there in the street. Bucky stares at the sky and savors the sweet rush of endorphins coursing through his body. Beside him, Steve smells rank and wonderful.

"Did you know two men can get married, now?"

Bucky chokes on his water. "Come again?"

Steve's picking at the label on his bottle. "Made it legal a couple years ago."

Bucky stares at the traffic so he won't stare at Steve. "Huh."

Steve shuffles his feet. They're leaning against a bus stop kiosk, and he pushes himself upright. "Just thought... you said you went to queer bars. Now you don't have to hide it."

Bucky swallows. "Guess that's good." It's the firmest exertion of his will that keeps his limbs from trembling. He recognizes that sharp cut of longing in Steve's chest; he knows it from his own. His breath catches. "We should be getting back," he says. The street is no place for the kind of conversation they need to have. He doesn't let himself hope.

Steve follows him. Their floor is mostly bare, still; one of Steve's conditions for moving in, even on a part-time basis, was for Stark to leave it to him to furnish in his own time and his own fashion. Bucky remembers rolling his eyes at the bachelor tip he'd walked into. Steve had bought a bed, a couch, and a coffee table; he bought a table and chairs and a single bookcase. A drafting table stood against the window in a patch of clear light. He bought nothing else.

When Bucky moved in, books lined the floor in neat rows, and the cabinets were bare of all dishes but for two each of the necessities. The countertops held the vast bounty of a coffee maker, a toaster, and a whole tree's worth of takeout menus—but not a single recipe, and not one cookbook.

Now there are the bookcases from Steve's Brooklyn apartment and the flatscreen Stark had forced on him. The coffee table is covered in mug-sized rings because neither of them bothered to buy coasters. It's still a bachelor tip, but the kitchen is stocked, because Bucky learned Nika's lessons well. It's where they end up, more often than not. It's where they end up today, sweating and nervous with all their unspoken words bubbling to the top.

Bucky stares at the sink, too scared to speak. He's held these feelings in for all his life, and even now, when he _feels_ the tremble in Steve's soul at his proximity, he can't fight past the instinct to protect himself.

Steve, naturally, has no such instinct when he decides it not worth the trouble. "They say angels don't have free will," he says. "Is that true?"

Bucky frowns. He licks his lips, shrugs. "Not like a human," he says. "But we're not entirely without agency. Wouldn't make decent guardians and soldiers, otherwise." He glances at Steve. "We're steadfast. We're eternal. We... they say we're made of duty and love, and nothing else."

Steve's eyes are so blue. "Which do you feel about me?" His heart is pounding so hard Bucky can feel it in his own skin.

Bucky huffs a laugh. "I'm a Guardian," he says. "It'll always be both."

Steve frowns, looking down at his feet. An icy shiver runs down Bucky's spine at the sinking disappointment he feels in Steve's chest. "So you love, but it's with strings attached."

Bucky's heart skips a beat. "What? No."

"No? Sounded like it. You love because God commands it." Steve has a stubborn, mulish look on his face, and Bucky could scream.

He snorts, instead. "Do you know how we're chosen to protect our charges?" he asks.

Steve shakes his head.

"It's not because God tells us to. It's chance, really. His most direct manifestation among us we call the Pattern. It's the interweaving of cause and effect that maps out the past, present and future. Say you ate shredded wheat this morning; because of it you got hungry quicker, so you stopped at a food cart on the way back to Avengers Tower. Someone took a photo of Captain America patronizing a food cart and posted it to Instagram; that extra dose of publicity drew record profits for the owner. He'll use the money to buy his daughter a copy of _Watership Down_ , because she loves animals. That book will motivate her to become a veterinarian when she grows up.

"That chain of events—your choice of breakfast to a future vet—is one thread in the overall shape of the Pattern. But it's not set. Say you'd eaten eggs and bacon instead, or gone to a different food truck, or the owner had bought _The Hobbit_. Those are threads, too. Just because one thing happens doesn't mean God willed it to be so, it just meant the probabilities of it happening were higher." Bucky pauses, tilts his head in acknowledgement. "And also because God willed it to be so.

"Point is, There was no command from God. I don't know what He wants any more than you do, but since this world is still spinning on I assume He's okay with how things have turned out."

There's a moment of silence. "That's incredibly un-Catholic," Steve finally says, his voice faint. "No wonder you stopped going to church."

Bucky grins. "Father Brannon hated my guts."

Steve cracks up laughing. "Oh God," he says, and he laughs harder. 

"'But Father, _why_ does God care that we keep the Sabbath day? Wouldn't He know we believed even if we didn't go to church?' 'I though God _meant_ for Eve to eat the apple. We have to gain self-awareness before we can grow up. Why wouldn't God want that?' 'Moishe Levi said that we only sin through action. That sounds better to me than a sin in the heart is a sin in truth.'"

"Poor Father Brannon," Steve says. His grin is infectious.

"Yeah, I made him earn his keep." Bucky's smile fades. "But that's the thing, Stevie," he says. "I don't know if I was commanded to fall in love with you, or if it just happened. The higher-ups actually warn us against it, before we're sent out. My Guardianship is kind of irrelevant in the equation."

"No, it's not," Steve says, his expression serious. "There's a reason bodyguards and their clients aren't meant to fall in love. It's a conflict of interests, Bucky. And if that's the case, then I don't want you guarding me anymore."

Bucky feels himself fade, feels the light of the Most High flicker and wane. "I—if that's how you feel, then I can—" He thinks he could go back to Philadelphia. There was a place for him there, after a fashion.

Steve smiles, and Bucky wants to knock his teeth in, because of all times to _smile_ this is not one of them—but he smiles, and he pushes away from the counter, and he says, "Bucky, you idiot, that's not what I meant."

"Then what was it? Stop fucking teasing me, Stevie, okay?"

And Steve reaches out his hand to cup Bucky's cheek, and there's something achingly tender in his gaze. "I've loved you ever since you knocked Frankie McRae off me with some bullshit about Baby Ruth bars," he says. "I loved you before I knew what love was. Bucky, I don't want you to be my guardian anymore because I _love_ you. And I want to be selfish as hell about this, because if playing by Heaven's rules means I lose you for seventy years, that's it, I'm done. God can fuck Himself."

Bucky laughs, because it's _Steve_ and he can't stop the reflexive flinch inside at cussing God out. Steve's face is wry, like he knows it too. He is so close Bucky can smell the clean smell of his sweat, the lingering traces of shaving cream and soap, and he longs to bury himself in Steve's neck, to tuck his face against his shoulder and never resurface.

"Can... Can I kiss you?" Steve asks, his eyes flicking up to Bucky's.

Bucky smiles, light and happy. "Yeah, Steve. God yeah, you can kiss me."

And he does, just a soft press of lips, and Bucky lets the world slide away as he wraps his arms around Steve's waist. His heart is swooping, he's caught in the dizzy heat of finally, _finally_ kissing Steve Rogers. He can't find words, so he kisses deeper, putting all his skill into making Steve melt against him.

"Wait, wait, slow down," Steve says, pulling away, and Bucky fucking—he fucking _whimpers_ , because he's been waiting eighty years for that kiss, and Steve cut it short because of a crisis of fucking conscience. Bucky would kill him if he didn't love him so much.

"I swear to God, Steve—"

"Just hear me out, okay?" He actually steps back, the bastard, and that just means Bucky is cold _and_ he can see the way he's reddened up Steve's lips, the way his hair sticks up in tufts, and just how very, very interested Steve is. "We—I—" He heaves a sigh. "I, Steve Rogers—"

"I know your name, asshole—"

"Shut the hell up, Bucky, and let me talk."

Bucky puts up his hands, glaring, but silent.

"Thanks. As I was saying, _I_ —" he glares pointedly at Bucky, "don't feel comfortable with this. Whether or not you're actually obliged to love me because of your duty, _I'm_ not going to go any farther than this. It's not fair to you."

Bucky gapes at him. "No, you know what's not fair, Steve? It's giving me a hard-on and then not following through. _That's_ not fair."

"What, and guilting me is? Shower's right there. Do what you have to. I'm not taking advantage of you when you when I can't know if you're really choosing this."

Bucky glares so hard he's pretty sure he'll break something. "If I known this'd be how you'd react, I wouldn't have told you."

"Jesus Christ, Bucky!" Steve's angry, now. "That doesn't make it any better!"

Bucky stomps off to the shower. He's not having this conversation, he's _not_ , not when he's hard enough to hammer nails and Steve's cockblocking them both. He knows he's running again, but Goddamn it—!

He beats off furiously, pulling sharp and rushed over his cock, and his orgasm is tainted by anger and frustration. He groans loud enough Steve has to have heard it. He leans against the shower wall. He'll probably thank Steve for it later, but right now, he's cursing his damned nobility.

"Fucking hell," he whispers, and turns the water off. 

***

Angels don't have free will, despite what Bucky says. That's what Steve doesn't understand. They were never made to have it, because they don't need it. Guardians can fake it well enough, but it's not true freedom in the human sense.

Some days, Bucky hates having to choose which socks to wear. If Steve would just—

There's a place inside Bucky, a place that is blood-soaked and passive, that _wants_ Steve to take him. Wants Steve to throw morals to the wind and take control of the shredded man HYDRA left behind.

But Steve won't do it.

And in that frozen, screaming place buried deep inside, Bucky hates him for it.

***

The good thing about Thor, Bucky decides, is that he can take a hit like nobody else. Bucky unleashes the full strength of his power against him and he shrugs it off like a cotton ball to the face. Bucky doesn't hold any illusions that the opposite is true, but Thor looks unlikely to retaliate in full, and moreover he's willing to be Bucky's punching bag.

He never sees Steve at any of their sparring sessions, but he sees Steve's guarded expression when he goes back to their apartment at night and assumes he's watching on Stark's monitors. He also sees the way Steve winces when Bucky pointedly walks toward the spare bedroom. He's not being fair, Bucky knows. Steve raised perfectly legitimate concerns—for a human relationship, anyway—and Bucky's punishing him for it. He could be an adult and work to find a solution. That would be the best option. Naturally it's the one he runs from the fastest.

So he takes it out on the Norse god, instead.

He sees Clint and Natasha passing money and whispering bets back and forth whenever they go to the gym, and Stark is starting to whine about the destruction of private property. Bucky ignores them. He talks less and less to everyone, and his morning runs expand to include the Boroughs. There's a part of his brain that hopes, somehow, that if he works himself to the bone each day he won't have to think. That his problems will go away. Thor takes his obstinacy without comment, merely offering himself to Bucky's frustration. 

It isn't until Bucky collapses during a match that he speaks. "Bucky," he says, propping Bucky’s legs up on the weight bench and setting a water bottle by his head. "This must stop."

Bucky's spent, stretched so far past his emotional barriers he can't stop the tears that prick his eyes. "I can't. I can't, I—I just _want_..."

He expects Thor to ask, to press and interrupt his words, but Thor is smarter than he gave him credit for. He remains silent, and all that Bucky has is his broken confession, spilling out without an end in sight.

"I want Steve, but I can't be his Guardian at the same time. How is that—he says it's wrong, but I don't... Maybe if I lied, but we're—I'm his right hand, he's my right leg. We can't lie to each other, anymore. I just want to be with him." He turns to face the wall so Thor can't see his tears. "And I shouldn't."

Thor is silent for a time. "I am unfamiliar with the ways of Abrahamic angels," he says, "but is there not a way to break a Guardianship?"

"Probably." Bucky sniffs, running his flesh hand under his nose. He doesn't bother with his eyes. Better just to let them tear and drain; rubbing them will only make them redder.

Thor sits cross-legged beside him. "It is no small matter, to break a sworn oath—but perhaps, if the circumstances warrant it, it might be done. If that is a path you decide you truly wish to pursue."

Bucky doesn't reply. He tries to tell himself that Steve isn't rejecting him, not really, but it feels that way.

Thor mutters a curse. "I feel as though I am in a youth drama. You are nearly a century in this flesh, Bucky Barnes. Speak to your shield mate. I have provided an option; if it is not the right one, then find another. I, for one, will no longer help you run from your problems." He gets up and leaves the gym.

Bucky pushes himself upright and reaches for the water. When a Dominion tells you to do something, you do it. He sighs and presses the bottle to his forehead. Talk to Steve. Another choice. His throat constricts, but he pushes himself upright, and determination drives him forward. Angels may be bad with choice, but they are concentrated will.

He will talk to Steven Grant Rogers, and if he can't beat sense into his stubborn skull, he'll renounce his Guardianship.

***

In the end, the matter is solved almost painlessly. He meets Steve's eyes over the stack of pizza boxes and says, "There might be a way for me to stop being your Guardian."

Steve looks pensively back at him and replies, "Any strings attached?"

"Dunno," Bucky says. "I need to look into it a little more."

Steve takes a bite of pepperoni and sausage. "Why do you want to?"

Bucky weighs his words. _Because I really, really wanna bang you_ is accurate, but neither appropriate nor the full picture. Neither is _I'm lonely and I miss you so bad it hurts_. Instead, he says, "I've been mortal so long I've forgotten what it means to be an angel." He tilts his head, considering. "And also because I really, really wanna bang you."

Steve snorts and rolls his eyes. "If it's what you want," he says, "I'm with you."

"'Til the end of the line?"

"Nah, thought I'd get off at Franklin Ave."

Bucky throws a bunched up napkin at his head. "Asshole."

***

"I'm not weeding your potatoes or whatever it is you want me to do," Bucky says. "I want to know if there's a way to break a Guardianship."

La Señora frowns up at him, then starts laughing. "I never thought you would muster the stones for a choice that big," she snorts.

Bucky crosses his arms.

" _Sí, hermanito_. There is a way. And when you are ready, I will be here for you. But," she says, raising a finger. "Make sure it is what you truly want. Consider the all the possibilities. This is not a small choice you are making."

Bucky nods. "Any suggestions how I might do that?"

She purses her lips. "An Asgardian has resources no Earth-bound angel can hope for," she says. "Ask the Odinson."

" _Gracias, Abuelita_ ," Bucky says.

"Ai, your accent is terrible."

***

Sam sits down next to him the night before they go. His eyes are troubled. "Barnes," he says. "Bucky. I know you don't like me much."

Bucky nods. He sees no need to hide the truth.

"I figure it's because I'm taking your place. Pushing into your territory. Is that wrong?"

Dancing with the Stars is playing; Bucky tries to pretend he's interested, that Sam's not sitting in the chair next to him. It doesn't work. Sam's throwing off all manner of noisy radiation, and all of it boils down to worry and wound-clock tension. Bucky's leg starts jiggling in nervous sympathy. 

Sam takes a breath. "Fine. You're not gonna say it. But I've got something to say, so if you could set the territoriality aside for a moment, I'd appreciate it." He pauses, as though he actually expects an answer. He sighs. "My duty is to protect Steve, whatever it takes. For me, that means protecting you, too."

Bucky abandons the program for this new level of bullshit. He levels Sam with a narrow-eyed glare. "What."

"You heard the first time. It's not so formal as what we've got with Steve, but look at it this way: if you die, Steve's not gonna be long in following. That's simple fact. Boy has it so bad for you he doesn't know what healthy looks like, anymore. To do my job properly, I've gotta look after Bucky Barnes, too."

Bucky swallows back the surge of bile in the back of his throat. _Not me, Stevie. God, not for me_. He doesn't say anything.

Sam presses on. "So, I guess I came here to say that I got your back. And as your unofficial guardian angel, I don't know if this is the best thing for you to be doing."

Bucky clears his throat. "You got any better ideas?"

Sam purses his lips. "Don't go barking up the Norns' Tree? Just a thought."

"Not like I'm gonna get an answer from the Watchers. Can't exactly visit them like this. The Norns I can, with Thor's help."

"You don't have to visit them at all."

Bucky gives him a flat look. "And risk the Pattern? What happens if I'm no longer Steve Rogers's Guardian, huh? Look what happened last time I skipped out on my duty. I need to know I won't cause a massacre or something by shifting the Possibilities."

He's starting to feel antsy. He didn't come up to the common room so he could be accosted by Sam fucking Wilson, who went and turned into a voice of reason when he wasn't looking. He starts tapping out the rhythm of the song Stark blasted last time he ran a diagnostic on Bucky's arm. Bucky can't remember the name of the band, but the climactic lyric sticks in his head. _And as we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our soul..._

As though he senses his window of opportunity is closing, Sam ducks his head, running a hand over his mouth. "You're putting me in a nasty place, here, Bucky. I can't look after both of you if you go to Nornheim. It's a different plane, you know that. I've gotta pick just one of you, because I can't tend to you both—and it's gonna be Steve. So I'm playing Devil's advocate, okay? Just think about the worst case scenario for a moment."

Bucky is _tired_. "I get it, alright? I'm sorry you're hip-deep in shit, but I'm going." _So shut the fuck up and leave me alone_ , he doesn't say.

Sam nods. "Alright." He doesn't look pleased. He looks tired, too.


	8. Chapter 8

They meet outside, on Stark’s landing platform. The day is sunny, the air so clear Bucky can see the ferries chugging back and forth across the harbor. He tamps down his nerves and steps out to meet Thor. Thor holds out a hand. "It is easier, the first time, if you hold on."

Bucky swallows, nods. His fingers close tight about Thor's.

"Heimdall! Open the Bifröst!"

A rushing bellow of light comes to lift them from their feet. Bucky bares his teeth into the tumult, laughing in feral delight. It is the wild flight of combat, the high of running full tilt. Beside him Thor is laughing, too, feeding off his glee. There is the pinch of the wormhole, and the lurch of freefall before their feet strike metal, and the Rainbow Bridge fades away.

"Welcome, Bucky," the Watcher says, and Bucky bows to him before he stops to think.

"Thank you, sir."

"Your thanks are unnecessary. We would do no less for any one of our cousins."

Bucky's mouth quirks up. "Cousins, huh."

The Watcher's voice is deep. "The term suffices."

"Thank you, Heimdall, for your service," Thor cuts in. "As always, it is impeccable. But now we must away. The Norns await us."

Heimdall bows, and Thor chivvies Bucky along. They walk out over the waters beyond. The bridge is the purest crystal, striated with color and sound alike. Thor takes his turn as tour guide, pointing out the Hearth tower and the Hall of Justice. "And there," he says, "is Glaðsheim, the royal palace. I would take you there to meet my father, but we are pressed for time."

"You keep saying that," Bucky says. "But it's not like we're late for an appointment."

"One is always late to see the Norns," Thor replies. "They have been waiting for us for a long time, you see; there is no need to stoke their ire by dallying."

Bucky paces alongside the Prince of Asgard. "That's bizarre. For the record."

"And yet true of all seers."

"Wouldn't know. Haven't met any."

Thor's face, when he looks, is set in grim lines. "I regret that the Norns must be your first. They are not kind."

"Wonderful."

They stop at a horse market several streets away from the wharf, and Bucky's heart sinks. He catches Thor's arm. "Not to be a rain cloud on a sunny day, but I don't know how to ride a horse."

Thor frowns in puzzlement. "Truly?"

He shoves his hands in his pockets. "It's not a skill city boys like me get a chance to pick up, even in the stone ages of 1940." He sees Thor's gobsmacked expression, and feels obliged to add, "Sorry."

"No, my friend, it is I who must apologize. I had not thought of it, but of course you wouldn't. You Midgardians travel by car and plane, not horse. It was foolish of me." He turns and leads down another road, back to the docks. "Come! There are more ways to travel on Asgard than by horseback!"

They end up chartering a boat—only, it's not like any boat Bucky's ever seen. In construction it looks something like a clinker-built Viking longship, but there the resemblance ends. A near-silent engine is built into the stern, and a pair of mesh wings fan out to frame the non-existent wake. Bucky sits carefully on one of the benches while Thor takes the tiller. He does so with a pensive expression and sorrow in his heart. Bucky considers asking him about it, but it has the feeling of an old wound, once suppurant but now healing cleanly. He leaves it lie.

They spring into the air with little more than a nudge to the tiller, and Bucky clutches the gunwales. He stares, wide-eyed, as the wharf shrinks and the city spills out before his eyes. It is golden, this city. The buildings are made of a cream-colored stone, and when the sun catches against them they flare with false gilt.

"Nice town," Bucky says, ducking as another airship zips overhead.

"I think so," Thor replies, "though I have not been back in many months."

"Can I ask why?"

Thor is staring out over the water, toward a pair of statues hunched on either side of a mountainside tunnel. One of them seems to be short a head. "I have lost much, and this city reminds me of it. I am not done grieving."

Bucky heard about Thor's mother and brother from Jane. He lets the topic drop.

Thor steers them southward, as near as Bucky can tell; the stars are foreign, though he sees Betelgeuse and Alpha Centauri, and the backside of the Horsehead Nebula. None of them are where they're supposed to be, in real space. He lowers his gaze to the terrain beneath them.

The city thins out and falls back as they climb higher toward the mountains. A dark fissure in the stone reveals itself to be a mountain pass, complete with winding switchbacks and pack-laden donkeys climbing up the road below. "This is the only pass this side of the Crags," Thor says, as though Bucky has any frame of reference to what that means. “Aside from the sea-lanes, all trade to the capital comes through here.” He swoops them upwards, skimming close over alpine meadows and bramble thickets.

The pass itself is a claustrophobic wedge carved out of the mountain by a river, barely visible far below. It's a tight fit: Thor slows the little boat so they can negotiate the serpentine twists without running aground against the cliffs, and slipping out the other end into the spreading vista beyond is like taking a deep breath after being crushed.

"Where to, now?" Bucky asks.

Thor points to a smudge along the horizon. "There. That is the center of this land, and the seat of the Norns' power. Sleep; it will take time for us to reach the bounds of that place, for distances are deceiving across the highlands."

Bucky shrugs and hunkers down out of the wind. Thor offers him his cloak, but Bucky waves it aside; it's cool enough for him, here.

He doesn't fall into a proper sleep. Visions dance before his mind's eye, and scattered thoughts drift by as he dozes. He registers a darkening, and a lightening. Ever-present is the hum of the engine.

It's the change in the wind that rouses him. All through his dreams it kept a moaning, lonely counterpoint, but now it's fallen silent, and a line of gooseflesh shivers down Bucky's spine. He breathes deeply to dispel the cobwebs and opens his eyes. White fog meets his gaze, as far as the eye can see. He panics for half a heartbeat, until he remembers he can see the boat, and the bloody red of Thor's cape where it cuts through the fog. He pushes himself upright.

"Where are we?" he asks.

"Close," is all Thor says in reply. Bucky peers over the side, to see if he can see the ground. It's tangled with roots. There is nothing but the fog, the roots, and their tiny boat, nosing through the mist toward ports unknown. Thor's eyes are set forward, seeing something only he can; Bucky reaches out with his senses, and nearly staggers back at the power rushing into him.

This is a primordial place, the likes of which Midgard has forgotten. He feels his soul shivering out of his body, and his wings involuntarily flare out over his shoulders.

"Bucky!" Thor barks out. "Pull them back!"

Bucky does, jerking with surprise and embarrassment. Thor sighs. "Apologies," he says. "There are things in this fog that are drawn to power. They are ever hungry, and would eat you without thought."

"Thanks," Bucky mumbles, wrapping his arms about himself. He's thinking less and less favorably about this plan. Maybe Sam was right, though it's a bit late to be thinking that.

Presently, Thor brings the tiny boat to a stop. "I can go no further," he says to Bucky's puzzled look. "The rest of the way is for you alone, and must be made on foot."

Bucky swallows.

"I will wait here. The Norns will keep your step from straying from this point onward. You need not fear you will lose the way."

"Thanks."

"Until we see each other again."

Bucky takes a fortifying breath and hops over the side. He slips on a tree root, and he steadies himself against the boat's forward stabilizer. He takes a step. The earth is soft and springy underfoot. He looks down, and sees that, between the roots, a thick carpet of moss has spread. He presses down his boot; water oozes up to fill his footprint when he takes it away. He straightens and walks on.

All around him are roots and mist and moss. The scent of water is thick in the air, as though rain has just fallen. Sweat drips down his spine despite the chill. He walks, and the roots grow larger, tangling together in unfathomable ways before slipping beneath the earth. The bark is thickly creviced, as of an ancient oak. Bucky sees beetles crawling amidst the stems of wild mushrooms.

The only sound he hears is his own squelching footsteps, but the farther he walks he begins to parse out a new sound: that of water lapping gently against muddy shores. The sense of power flares and settles. He can sense the Pattern, here. He hesitates, and voices rise out of the mist.

"Little lamb, so far from home! No shepherd here, to guide you."

"Thinks he's lost."

"Turn him away, we don't want him here."

"No, come back, little lamb! It's been so long since one of your kind came to visit. We were just talking about you." High-pitched laughter arises from nowhere, setting Bucky's teeth on edge.

He sees the water, first. It is still, stagnant; white scum hovers over the surface. This close it stinks like a rotting marsh.

"Younger elder son of YHWH," a woman says, stepping into view. Bucky jumps. "Sworn to duty and chafing beneath it." Her voice is nasal, childlike. Bucky eyes her warily. _Verdandi,_ the little voice whispers.

A second steps into view. She is rough-cut and blocky, her limbs like pillars and just as soft. Bucky opens his mouth to speak— "Be quiet," the woman says. He shuts his mouth. _Skuld_.

Bucky squares his shoulders. "I come seeking answers," he declares, angling for confidence but falling short. His voice is small in the dead, sodden air.

"Answers, eh?" Verdandi. "We might have those, for the right questions." Her skin is the color of spoiled milk. Her hair lies lank down her back.

"Don't hold out hope for that," a third voice says, and Bucky spins to look. _Urd_. She is corpulent, hunched over a spinning wheel. Beyond, Bucky can just make out a massive loom, its pattern indistinct and shifting in the gloom.

"Will you answer them?" he asks.

"If you ask." Papery laughter greets this statement.

Bucky rubs his hands together. "I plan on breaking my Guardianship to Steven Grant Rogers," he says. "I want to know what the consequences will be."

"Didn't ask a question, did he," Urd mutters. The stench of infection and rot lingers on her breath.

Bucky scowls. His skin is crawling; he kicks a centipede off his boot. "What will happen if I break my Guardianship?"

Verdandi smiles a yellow, gap-toothed grin. "Oh, little lamb," she croons. "Without your duty, what will keep you from falling the rest of the way? That's what you fear, isn't it?"

Bucky trembles. He fights it back. "I want to be with Steve without duty between us. He'll keep me from falling."

They hiss. "So much trust!"

"He's earned it."

They laugh. "He's _earned_ it! So sure, you are, little lamb!” They mutter amongst themselves for a while. Skuld looks up from their huddle. Her eyes are disinterested and blank. "You could do worse," she grunts.

"There will be consequences," Verdandi cautions, raising spidery hands as though to ward them off. "All hard choices have them."

"What consequences?"

They cackle. "Those you must see for yourself, the slow way."

"Alright, alright," Bucky says, putting out his hands. "Just tell me this: are there any significant negative consequences by human standards that follow from this choice?"

"Asking clever questions," Urd mutters.

"No," Skuld says to him. She says nothing more.

Bucky looks to Verdandi. "Are there any _in_ human consequences, say to those from different realms?"

Skuld bares her teeth, but Verdandi smiles. "Do not overestimate your importance in the grander picture, little one."

"Just makin' sure."

"Now, for payment..."

"Anything."

They titter amongst themselves, jarring and sharp. "So eager! So hasty!"

"It was already yours as soon as I came here, so just spit it out," Bucky says, pulling hard on his nerves and his temper.

Skuld spits on the moss at his feet.

"It was dear information you sought," Verdandi says. "The dearer the question, the dearer the cost."

"I don't have much."

"You have your memories," Urd says. She strokes a thick, clammy finger down Bucky's cheek, and he lurches back.

" _No_."

"Tcha, sisters! He is honorless!"

"No, I'm not!" Bucky snarls. "But you can't have my memories. They're off-limits."

Verdandi draws near, her eyes creased in sympathy. "They are precious to you, are they not?"

"They're all I've got." He looks down at the black earth, at the crawling tendrils of fungus and moss. "Please. Don't turn me back into _that_."

Urd sniggers; Skuld kicks her. "You misunderstand," Verdandi says. "We don't want them all, we just want one."

Bucky stares at them, and he is alternately relieved and terrified. "Which one?"

Verdandi waves a hand. "Oh, it's nothing, really. You won't even miss it."

"Which. One."

Verdandi draws back, her eyes hard and black as a beetle's wings. "The game. May 25, 1941. The Dodgers versus the Phillies. You and Steve, on hooky from your hardscrabble lives. You bought him a hotdog and cheap beer; he caught you a fly ball and got it signed." Her eyes shine. "We want that day."

Bucky staggers.

"Bit off more than you could chew, eh?" Urd leers.

Bucky swallows. "What do you do if I say no?"

"The memory is already ours," Verdandi says. "Price paid in full. If you wish to keep it, stay as long as you like."

His heart sinks. He stares into the scummy waters of the sacred pool, and thinks of the way the sun had shone off Steve's hair; the sweet, nutty taste of cracker jack; the bubble of happiness that had risen in his chest. He'd showed everyone on the block that baseball. Told it three times over how Steve had sweet-talked his way into the dugout to get it signed by Dolph Camilli.

He looks up at Verdandi. "Just that day?" he asks. "No other associated memory, just the one of that day?"

"Just the one of that day."

He'd be able to remember it through Steve's memory and his own retellings. He'd have the words, the faint sense of it, if not the memory itself. His breath shudders out of his chest. "Thank you for your assistance, Great Ones. I apologize for the imposition."

"It was a pleasure, Bucky," Verdandi says. "Feel free to return any time."

He walks back through the snare of tree roots to where Thor is waiting. The further he walks, the more the fog fades, and with it slip away more and more details. First the stadium and the roar of the spectators; then what kind of beer he bought. He _knows_ it was a... He swallows, forcing himself onward. There was—someone hit a fly ball? And Steve caught it, but—. He stops more than once, clinging to the shreds of recollection and dreading the next step. Tears run down his face. By the time he gets back to Thor, there is nothing. He wouldn't even have known he'd gone to that game at all, if not for the memories of him bragging about it. Of Steve smiling fondly in remembrance. Of Daisy holding the baseball, eyes wide and solemn as he swore her to its safekeeping before he left for war.

Thor's hand is gentle when he lays it on Bucky's shoulder. "Their price is never easy," he says. "Come. Let us return."

***

"Hey, Steve."

"Yeah."

"You remember the game in '41?"

"God, I—yeah, Buck. I do."

"Could you tell me how it went, again?"

"Sure. I can do that."

***

They don't waste unnecessary time. With the typical efficiency of angels they arrange the tools and location. Bucky goes down to Philadelphia to schedule a time with la Señora; he returns with an invitation to use her workroom. "It has many years of healing soaked into its walls," she says over the phone to Sam. Sam looks to Bucky; Bucky shrugs. He's never seen her workroom, but he knows Señora Cecilia's healing. If it won't do the trick, nothing will.

Sam drives them down in his new Corolla. Thor rides shotgun, and Steve sits in the back with Bucky, their hands tight together. Sam makes a crack about _Driving Miss Daisy_ that goes over all their heads.

Bucky feels cold. He talked with Señora Cecilia extensively about what the rite would entail, knows there won't be any restraints or cryo or electricity. He knows it won't hurt beyond what's unavoidable.

It's still experimental. He's still a lab rat. No angel has ever done what he's contemplating doing: asking Heaven's _permission_ to Fall. Maybe he's fated to be an experiment, strapped to a table and helpless to escape. He shudders.

Steve's hand squeezes his own, bringing him back to the present. He looks over; Steve's watching him, a tight, pained expression on his face that he's doing his level best to hide. Bucky sighs and looks out the window, squeezing Steve's hand in acknowledgement. He appreciates the concern, he really does; but there's so much protectiveness in the car right now he's starting to feel like he's wrapped in cotton for safekeeping.

He hasn't been fragile for a long, long time.

Señora Cecilia's workshop turns out to be her spare bedroom. There are folk and religious symbols on the walls, as well as bundles of dried herbs, both loose and woven into smudges. Five folding lawn chairs sit arrayed in a circle, and an overflowing workbench leans against the wall. "Cozy," Bucky says, examining a hyper-realistic crucifix hanging by the door. He never understood humanity's pervasive morbidity, but then he supposes he won't take his future death for granted the way a human might.

"Sit, please," Señora Cecilia says. "I would like this to be over before my tomatoes start falling from the vine."

Steve stills, halfway sat down. "Is it going to take that long?"

"It might," Thor replies. "It is not unknown for rites of binding and breaking to take several days at a stretch."

"That's only for Asgardians," Sam hastens to add. "They like their ceremony."

Thor grins lopsidedly.

Steve settles himself with an uneasy glance to Bucky. Bucky tries to smile for him. He doesn't think it was very successful.

They sit in the chairs, and Señora Cecilia places sachets of herbs around their necks. "What's in these?" Bucky asks.

"Herbs," she replies. "I'm a _yerbera_ ; trust me to know my business."

Bucky's leg starts jiggling. "Just curious," he mutters.

"I know my business," Señora Cecilia repeats. "Don't take them off. They will keep us attuned through the rite. Steve, I'm afraid this will be a long and boring wait for you. We will be communing in the angelic fashion, which you won't be able to hear. At a point in the ceremony—I'm not sure when—I will ask you if you consent to the breaking. You will say yes or no—"

"Yes," Steve interrupts. "If it's what Bucky wants."

"Wonderful," la Señora says. "Say it just like that during the ceremony and we won't have any problems. Then you will be back to waiting. You have all fasted as I told you to?"

They nod. "Then we will not have need to leave the circle. Do not do so, any of you."

They nod again. She sits and places a bag around her own neck. "Join hands." They do so, and Bucky feels a blooming awareness in the back of his mind. _Hello, Bucky_ , Señora Cecilia says, and with it comes a wave of instruction. He straightens his posture, reorients his grip, and settles into a meditative trance. Other consciousnesses swirl around his: Thor's spent-charge stillness and the careening free-fall that is Sam. Steve lingers in the back of his mind as always, a settling, peaceful blue.

Bucky grins. _Where there are two or three gathered together..._

 _Don't start_ , Señora Cecilia snaps. She addresses the group. _Open yourselves to the Song of the Most High_.

They do. The bone-grinding thrum of the Ages pours through their souls, and even Steve hears it second-hand, stiffening with shock in his chair. Goosebumps trail their way over Bucky's skin. It has been ninety-nine years. Ninety-nine years of silence and pain and, aside from Steve, crushing spiritual loneliness. It's a small Host they make, but he feels tension easing at last from his muscles. This is his birthright.

They commune for time untold, until la Señora begins whispering into the aether: _The angel Bucky wishes to break his Guardianship to the human Steven Grant Rogers. He is not coerced. He walks forward with his eyes open. He awaits the ruling of the Watchers and the Most High_.

They all take up the litany, Thor in his own, vaguely Scandinavian tongue, la Señora in Spanish. _I am the angel Bucky_ , he says. _I wish to break my Guardianship to the human Steven Grant Rogers. I am not coerced. I walk forward with my eyes open. I await the ruling of the Watchers and the Most High_.

They chant until there is a steady pulse, as of a great heart beating, and a Throne manifests inside their circle. Bucky hears Steve's gasp and he clenches his hand so he won't let go. Holy light and Grace fill the room, washing all shadows away.

 _Be not afraid_ , it says to Steve in a gentle, resonant voice. _I am come to dispense the Justice of God_. 

Steve is trembling. Bucky tries to see their guest through his eyes. It is in the form of a wheel within a wheel, each spinning about the other in perpetual motion. Every surface is covered with blinking eyes, and great, feathered wings stir the air. Smudges and herb bundles sway; a cross falls to the floor.

The Throne regards Bucky. _You seek to break a sworn oath_ , it murmurs. _Why do you seek this?_

Bucky opens his mouth, but the only thing he reveals is the absolute truth. _I have Fallen_ , he says. _I can no longer be an angel of Heaven. I would choose to become an angel of Earth instead, and stand by my lover's side_.

 _Your place is not to choose_ , the Throne says. _Your place is to obey_.

 _My place has changed_ , Bucky replies. _My place is with this human_.

The Throne wheels and stares Steve down. _You would keep an elder son of YHWH from his duty_ , the Throne says. _What presumption is this?_

"I don't want to keep anyone from their duty," Steve says. "But I love him, if that's what you mean."

 _Love_ , the Throne says. _Yes_. It spins about the circle, taking each of them in with separate eyes before spinning to spear them with a new set. _There is much love, here_. It pauses before Señora Cecilia. _You have been long on Earth, Uriel_ , it says. Bucky's mind ripples with shock, and he feels Sam's as well. Señora Cecilia is one of the Seven?

 _I will return when I'm damn well ready_ , she snaps. _If it's a parole officer you're looking for, I've got enough on my hands without looking after this one, too_.

 _Lying does not become you_ , the Throne says mildly, and moves to Thor. _You are not of our Host. I greet you, Thor, son of Odin_.

 _Komdu heil_ , Thor replies. _I join as a character witness. It was under the influence of cruel people that Bucky committed his crimes. He will not wreak bane-craft of his own will_. 

_I vouch for him, too_ , Sam adds. _And if it's a parole officer you want, I can do that easy enough_.

Bucky glowers at him, but Sam's spirit doesn't even quaver. _Tell me right now that you wouldn't feel safer knowing there's someone at your back in case you go rogue, Barnes, and I'll take it back_.

Bucky swallows. _My ma raised me not to tell lies_. He makes a mental note to reevaluate Sam Wilson when next he gets the chance.

The Throne spins, a sliver of approval in the slant of its wings. It turns back to Steve. _You who love him. Will you hold him to his path?_

"Only if he lets me," Steve answers, his voice brave against the whirlwind of Heavenly light. "I can't make him do what he doesn't want to. He's not an angel of Heaven anymore, but I won't have him be mine unless he wants it, too."

 _Consent_ , the Throne says. _You seek his free consent_. There is amusement behind its words. It turns to Bucky. _Your friends are loyal. Do you trust them?_

 _With my fate_ , he says. _I seek freedom from Heaven only for this lifetime. I will return to the fold, and to whatever punishment awaits, upon my transubstantiation_.

Steve jerks at this. "What punishment!" he snaps, but the Throne speaks over him.

 _You do not merit punishment_ , it dismisses. _One does not punish a hammer for striking heads instead of nails. It is not the fault of the hammer who holds it_. It spins in place. _Know that if you break this Guardianship, you will no longer be a hammer. You will have a hand of your own, and a will with which to strike. Is this a burden you wish to accept?_

 _Yes_ , Bucky whispers.

 _Then I shall see it done_. 

It vanishes in a whirlwind of light and wingbeats, and the silence of communion settles back in the room. "Well," Bucky says. "That was—"

He is silenced by a tearing pain in his chest. Beside him, Steve lurches. "Bucky!"

"Don't break the circle!" Señora Cecilia cries, catching Steve’s fingers in a vise-like grip. Steve's around Bucky’s own are equally tight.

"What's going on!"

"The bond's breaking, Steve," Sam says. "It hurt to make, and it has to hurt to unmake. Normally it's hidden in the pain of birth and death, but Bucky's breaking it out of its time."

Bucky is curled over his knees, gripping Thor's and Steve's hands to ground himself. He senses that little nubbin in the back of his mind, now showing seedlings and flourishing with power, and he sees the umbilicus springing from the midst of it: a tiny, twilight-blue strand that whispers _Steve_ in his soul. It's straining; some unseen force is pulling against it, drawing it taut. Bucky whimpers. Every shred of him screams against what is to come.

It snaps with a barely perceptible retort, and Bucky collapses against the cessation of pain. "Steve," he says. "Steve."

"Can I—"

Señora Cecilia huffs. "Yes."

Suddenly Steve's there, propping Bucky up. His hands burn against his shoulders. "I've got you, Buck," he says, and gathers him out of the chair.

"Steve," Bucky says again, and consciousness fades.

***

_Yeah, I love her. And it hurts. If I could change time, go back and do over, I'd do it in a heartbeat and marry her. But the thing is, Bucky, I can't. There's no going back. And it took me a while to realize, but when I walked around the future the more I kept turning to you. I kept waiting for you to slip in some sly line that would have us fighting not to laugh. And you weren't there._

_So yeah, Buck. I love Peggy. But you? You're my right arm. I don't know how to live without you at my side._

***

He's unconscious for an hour, or so Steve tells him. He wakes on Señora Cecilia's couch to the comfort of Steve's touch grounding him. He blinks and looks down; Steve is sitting on the floor beside him, his arm spread over Bucky's chest. He's staring into the middle distance.

"Hey," he murmurs.

Steve's head jerks up, and Bucky huffs a laugh at the worried look on his face. He raises the hand trapped under Steve's arm and strokes his shoulder blade with his knuckles. "You miss me?"

"Like I missed breathing," Steve says, and rises up on his knees to kiss him. His lips are warm and chapped, and he's shaking.

"Hey, hey," Bucky says, pulling back to run both hands over Steve's shoulders. "S'okay, I'm okay. M'fine." It's not true, but it's true enough. He feels the tension ease out of Steve's body.

Bucky grins. "Believe I'm an angel now?"

"I believed you before, dumbass," Steve says, settling back.

"But now you _really_ do."

Steve sighs, ducking his forehead to Bucky's chest. "Now I really do."

They get a few more minutes to themselves. Bucky can hear the others' voices coming from the kitchen, but for now he's content to lie tucked under Señora Cecilia's crocheted throw and Steve Rogers's arm. He feels light, almost dizzy; when la Señora glares at them to come eat, Steve has to help hm walk.

The table fair groans under the weight of the food spread upon it. "You expecting an army?" Bucky asks, tucking his napkin on his lap.

"I've got one," she says. "Three angels, an Asgardian, and a supersoldier, all fresh from spirit work? That is an army."

She feeds them a banquet. There are three different kinds of beans: one with rice, one with peas, and one with kale, a tomato salad with goat cheese and avocado on the side, alcapurrias, fried plantains in a pork sauce, and a pork roast. Everything is washed down with enormous glasses of horchata and water. Bucky feels himself sliding back in sync with his body as he eats.

When the dishes are cleared, Señora Cecilia takes Steve aside. Bucky can't hear what they say, and he assumes it's Uriel's power keeping him from eavesdropping. Steve comes back looking pensive.

"Don't make me regret helping you," la Señora says, raising a finger and pointing to all of them. "You have shared in my hospitality. I can make life very miserable for you all if you fail. Especially you." She glares at Bucky, but he can see the concern beneath.

He grins. "You know me," he says.

"Yes, I do," she grumbles. "Go. Leave. Give me back my house."

Sam drives them back. Bucky sits silently most of the way, watching Steve trace the grooves on his metal hand. Distantly he's aware of Sam and Thor talking family.

"Yeah, I've got about an acre of nieces and nephews. Christmas is a trip, let me tell you—"

"Wait," Bucky says, perking up from his contemplation. "Wait wait. We have to go back."

Steve looks up at him, worry in his eyes. "Buck? What's up?"

"I'm sitting in the car with Captain America and Uncle Sam. We have to back to the Liberty Bell and take a picture, no one will believe me, otherwise."

Silence reigns.

"You're a jerk," Steve finally says, trying and failing to paste a reproving look over his grin.

Sam has no such compunctions. He laughs outright.

"Is this a reference to the political system of America?" Thor asks, puzzled, and Sam laughs harder.

"Hands on the wheel, Wilson," Bucky says. "Don't want to crash."

"Fuck you, Barnes," Sam manages. 

Steve rolls his eyes and addresses Thor. "It's less about the political system and more about symbols and propaganda," he explains. "The Liberty Bell hung in the bell tower of Philadelphia State House, where our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written. Uncle Sam was a recruitment device first used during the War of 1812, and is a symbol for the United States. And _I_ ," he says in a long-suffering tone, "apparently don't need enemies."

"I see," Thor says.

"No, man," Sam interjects. "We need to be up there holding apple pie and a baseball, too."

Bucky cracks up.

"It's really not that funny," Steve says, fighting a smile.

"No," Bucky says. "It's _hilarious_."

***

When they get back to their apartment, Bucky pins Steve to the bed, stares him in the eye, and says, "I, James Buchanan Barnes, angel of the third tier and former Guardian of Steven Grant Rogers, do tender my Godlessly-given consent to fuck you sideways."

Steve has just enough time to open his mouth before Bucky rips off his pants and deep-throats his cock. He sucks him down without mercy, and Steve laughs as he comes. "Not fair," he wheezes. "I was caught by surprise."

"You're only saying that because you came like a twelve-year-old. C'mon, it's my turn." Steve rolls his eyes and drags Bucky up beside him on the bed. He wraps his long fingers around Bucky's cock. "Christ, you're an ass."

Bucky tries for a snappy comeback, but he comes apart in Steve's hands, instead. "Who's the twelve-year-old, now?" Steve murmurs into his ear, and Bucky lets the world drift away.

***

Bucky's at the grocery store when he realizes he can't feel Steve's soul against his own, anymore. He's holding a carton of eggs; it slips through his fingers and they shatter on the floor. He stares at the spreading pools of yellow as he presses against the empty space in the back of his mind. Distantly, he's aware that he's hyperventilating. A woman asks him if he's alright.

He runs all the way home, terrified that Steve's been killed—but he's sitting safe in front of the TV, watching Firefly. "Hey, Bucky," he says, and Bucky collapses against the wall in relief.

He's no longer Steve's Guardian, he realizes. This is what that means.

***

Clint calls it post-partum depression, which just makes Bucky want to hit him in the face and gag him with his own dirty boxers.

For almost a century he's had Steve's presence humming in his chest. Sometimes it's been no more than a whisper of an echo of a presence, but more often it's been the grounding tone of Bucky's life. _Steve is here. Steve is safe. Steve is content. Steve is injured. Steve is sick. Steve is in love_.

Now it's gone.

He starts avoiding Steve, because it's better than looking at him and straining for a bond that's no longer there. He runs all their errands, and takes his time. He slips on a ball cap and hoodie and loses himself in the crowds for hours on end. At night, he goes back to the spare room and lies curled around himself, fighting back tears against the ache. Steve is one room over and he wouldn't know it if he hadn't seen him walk in.

The urge to get up and make sure, to see if Steve really is still there, that he hasn't gone and gotten himself kidnapped by HYDRA or SHIELD or AIM or who-the-fuck-ever, won't let him sleep, burrowing under his skin until all he can do is stare at the wall, sweating through his shirt.

Steve isn't a fool, Bucky's assertions to the contrary notwithstanding. He's busy with the Avengers, but it's not hard to figure out Bucky's avoiding him. He watches him pull away, but gives him his space, no matter how much it hurts him.

It makes Bucky avoid him out of guilt, too.

"Hey Bucky," Steve asks from where he sits at his drafting board, flipping his pencil around his thumb. "Did you ever pick up modeling again?"

It's one of the increasingly rare days Bucky is both in their apartment and relatively calm. He chomps through a baby carrot. "No. Why?"

"You wanna model for me?"

Steve's face is uncertain when Bucky looks over at him. Hopeful. Every damn speck of nervous and shy, all there on his face for the world to see. _And yet, he manages to clean us out at poker_. "I don't work for free."

Steve snorts. "Like you need the money."

"It's the principle of the thing."

"Alright." Steve crosses his arms. "I'll do dishes for a week."

Bucky pops another carrot in his mouth. "They got a dishwasher for that."

Steve squints at him. "Laundry."

"Washing machine."

"I'll cook dinner." 

"I like living."

"Christ, Bucky, if you don't want to just say so."

Bucky says nothing. He stares down at the bag in his lap. "Wasn't how I meant it."

Steve sighs, rubbing his fingers into his eyes. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry.”

Silence settles between them, interrupted only by the ticking of the clock and the distant honking of New York cabs, which not even Tony Stark's top-of-the-line soundproofing can filter out.

Bucky sighs and sets the carrots on the coffee table. "Where do you want me?"

Steve turns to look at him. "What?"

"I said, where do you want me? You wanna paint me, you gotta tell me where."

Steve blinks. "I, uh. Okay." He stands, suddenly awkward, and Bucky's all the way back in 1939, with Steve flushing red and wringing his hands as he asks Bucky to model for him professionally. He can't help his grin, fleeting as it is.

"Go get your supplies ready," he says. A thought occurs to him. "Hey, do you want this clothes on or off?"

Steve freezes like a deer in the headlights. "I—" He stares at Bucky, an almost panicked look in his eye. Bucky steps forward.

"Hey, Stevie, it's okay, yeah? You've done this before." He snorts. "Been a few years, but I figure it's like falling off a bike. Always comes natural, if you've got the talent. Am I right?"

Steve huffs out a breath. "Yeah. Sorry, just got a bit... you know."

"Yeah, I do," Bucky says with a leer. "That’s a hell of a compliment there, Steve."

"Can it, alright? Not one more word."

Bucky mimes locking his lips and steps back, his hands up. Steve glares at him mock-suspiciously, but then his gaze fades out into the middle distance, and Bucky sees the gears churning in his mind. The outline of a portrait settles in. Bucky nods. "I'll get my jacket." He goes out into the hall, toward the bedroom.

"It's weird as hell when you do that, you know," Steve shouts after him. Bucky doesn't reply. It's not like he can control it.

They set up in Steve's studio, Bucky in the doorway wearing his jacket. Steve mixes paints and mutters to himself. "Won't be able to get the right light 'til tomorrow morning. Can do the outlines, though..."

Bucky waits patiently through it all, holding steady as Steve does his initial sketch. The image flows and changes in his mind, first leaving then staying, then an uneasy juxtaposition of both until inspiration strikes and the solution appears, perfect and lonely. Bucky shivers. His fingers clench on the doorknob.

It's the same as the first painting. Three sittings to complete Bucky's part, and a week for finishing touches. It's a week of Bucky keeping close to Steve, of biting back on the scream that wants to rip out of him at the gaping hole in his chest. It's a week where, slowly, Bucky's nightmares creep back in.

He stands in the door to Steve's bedroom, chilled from his own sweat and shivering with ambivalence. Steve stirs, because Steve won't admit it, but he's still on edge, too, no matter how many years have passed. "Buck?"

"Heya, Steve."

Steve stares at him for a time, the silence between them pregnant, before he scoots back and lifts the covers. "No pressure," Steve says. "Only if you feel comfortable."

 _What did I do to deserve you_ , Bucky thinks. He scuffs over the carpet and slips into bed, tucking his face into Steve's neck. A boundless, crushing tenderness fills him, and he realizes it's Steve, Steve's thoughts, Steve's emotions. Warm hands settle on his skin, and he falls asleep to the steady pulse of Steve's heart.

***

He leaves the next morning. Steve's face is set in an expression of understanding, but Bucky almost breaks at the desperation and denial boiling through him. "Whatever you need," is all he says. "The door'll be open if you want to come back."

Bucky nods, but doesn't answer. He needs to learn what it is to be all the way away from Steve. He doesn't know if he can.

***

He goes first to a tiny ranch outside of San Antonio. Rents a car and drives past endless fields of scrubby brush and cattle, the sun beating down from a cloudless sky. Oil derricks bob in the distance.

The house is pink stucco, done up like a Spanish villa. Bucky parks beside the dried-up fountain and gets out of the car. The courtyard is shaded by ancient mimosas, their blossoms dried on the branch and their slender leaves turned the tired, dusty green of high summer. He rings the doorbell and stands back, hands in his pockets.

It seems an eternity before the door opens, the lock slipping with a stiff snap. A bent, white-headed figure peers out, eyes bright despite the wrinkles that surround them.

"Hey, Daisy-girl," Bucky says, his heart jumping into his throat. God, time has passed so fast for her.

"Bucky?" she whispers, her eyes wondering. "Oh, I told Maria my heart would be what killed me. Never thought I'd have to prove it."

Bucky's throat tightens. "Not a ghost, Daisy," he says. "It's me. In the flesh."

She stares at him, thinking. She's an even-keeled gal, he can see that plain as anything: she bites her lip, pinches her hand, catalogues her quotidian aches. She pushes out the screen door and puts a hand on Bucky's good shoulder. "You feel solid enough," she says. "And I still creak enough to be kicking." She spears him a tight glance. "You got some explaining, boy."

Bucky snorts. "I'm still ten years older than you, squirt."

Her expression softens with old pain. "Come inside, Bucky," she says. "I just made lemonade, and you can tell me how you managed to keep off the wrinkles." She leads him through the house to the kitchen. When they pass the living room, he spies an old baseball displayed on the fireplace mantle.

They sit out back under the trumpet vines. "I did my grieving for you," she says to him. Her hands are shaking; Bucky's not sure whether it's shock or simple old age. "Grieved for two husbands and my sisters and mother. I thought I was the last one of our family."

Bucky says nothing, and draws patterns in the condensation on the table. Cicadas thrum in the trees.

"You know, they keep trying to get me to go to the memorial ceremonies. I used to go, back after the war, but I started turning them down in the sixties when someone graffitied the statue. It's been so long, and what they remember isn't what you were. They don't care that you put pepper in my underpants 'cause I told Mama about Anna Cohen. They want the hero. That Smithsonian exhibit, do you think they tell how angry Steve was all the time? Of course they don't."

Her face crumples. "Lord, don't leave again, Bucky," she says. "There's a ferocious happiness in me right now, and I can't let myself trust it because I'm still not certain you're real."

He reaches out over the table, taking her fragile, age-spotted hand in his own. "I'll be here, Daisy-girl," he says. "I'll look after you."

He spends a week at the ranch house, fixing pipes and patching drywall. They sit on the veranda every evening, watching the sunset and talking. Daisy never had children of her own, but her second husband had a son by a previous marriage, and he has a slew of children. Bucky takes down their contact information.

"Their names all start with P," he says.

Daisy grins. "Blame Peter for that," she says. "He heard Lyndon B. Johnson named everyone in his family with his own initials, and he decided he'd do that, too."

Bucky grins into his lemonade. "We've got a strange family."

"That we do. And I wouldn't trade it for the world."

He leaves at dusk, when the sky is shaded purple and crimson over the horizon and the first stars are coming out. He rolls down the window of his four-banger sedan and listens to the wind.

***

He travels the globe, jumping from city to city, forest to forest, holy site to holy site. He feels the thrumming ley lines at Stonehenge, at Ankor Wat, and in the precise alignment of the Pyramids. He walks the labyrinth in Chartres and peers up at the _putti_ adorning the Sistine chapel. He can't help but snigger at their chubby, infant arms. He supposes he is a _putto_ , after a fashion; he bridges the gap between the divine and mundane.

He wanders, tasting food Steve has never seen, and visiting places Steve has never dreamed of, and speaking languages Steve has never heard. He cements himself as Bucky, angel of the Lord, former assassin and present wanderer. He learns to like who that is.

He pays his respects to his old squad-buddies, when he comes across them. Dugan is first, up in Connecticut. It's a small grave in a small town. Bucky leaves a single hollow-point round on the gravestone. "Never did say thanks for not ratting me out," he says. "Guess you'd say something about not wanting to break a good string of luck, but that's horse shit and we both know it. So." He clears his throat. "Thank you." He smirks against a sudden thought and the plates in his metal arm recalibrate. "I'd like to see you try and beat _this_ in a match."

Dernier is next. He's buried next to his wife in Calais. Bucky sings "La Vie en Rose" just to prove that he can, no matter what crazy Frenchmen say. It's ragged by the end, but no one's listening aside from Jacques and Marie, and they wouldn't mind.

Falsworth's got himself a plaque in Westminster Abbey, right next to the Battle of Britain window. Bucky stares at it for a while, clenching his metal hand in his pocket. He leaves a while later, and cusses his way down backwards British roads to Surrey, where Falsworth's family pile is. Goosebumps shiver over his skin when Emily Falsworth, his granddaughter, shows him to his grave. He leaves his favorite knife with him, on the edge of his headstone.

"Wouldn't you know I'd get to Japan before you," he says softly to Morita, out in Sacramento. He takes out a couple bottles of sake and an old transistor radio he scavenged from a junkyard, dated 1948. "You remember when you told us about the time you got shit-faced and disassembled the wireless before your old lady got home? Thought we could do that."

Bucky gets shit-faced on rice wine, and the radio is in more pieces than he can focus on by the time he calls it quits. He gathers the pieces in a box and leaves them with Morita for safekeeping. "You'll have'ta look at that when y'get a chance," Bucky says. "Never could get the hang'a the damn things."

He sees Gabe last, in Cincinnati. He leaves a deck of cards and a pack of cigarettes with him. "Don't know how your Spanish is, these days, but I heard a good one a while back. Okay, so this Puertorriqueño walks into a store in the States to buy some socks. The clerk, though, he's a dumb shit who only speaks English. You know, like Steve, only worse. Now the Puertorriqueño's getting madder and madder, because he's bein' as clear at fuckin' crystal, yeah? And real polite about it, too. "Quisiera _calcetines_ , por favor. Sólo calcetines." And the salesman just keeps bringing out shirts and pants and ties, and the customer's getting more and more frustrated, going, "¡No, calcetines! _!Calcetines!_ " So finally the salesman brings out a pair of socks, and the customer bursts out, "¡Eso! ¡Sí, que es!" And the clerk, he just about tears out his hair and snaps, "Well, why didn't you spell it in the first place?!"

Bucky sniffs and runs his flesh hand down his face. "Screw you, Jones," he says through the bur in his throat. "Now I don't got nobody to appreciate my sterling sense of humor but Steven fucking Rogers." He lets out a breath and musters himself before telling another joke.

***

He runs into Natasha in Cusco. He's drinking coca tea in a smoky restaurant off the Plaza de Armas when she settles in the chair opposite. He raises a brow; she steals a slice of his _cuy_. "You know this is guinea pig, right?"

Bucky glowers. "Yeah, and it's _mine_. You want some, get your own."

She chews, swallows, shrugs. She shakes her head. "Nah. Not a fan."

"Glad I could help." He sips his tea. She doesn't move or venture to speak. "What do you want?"

Her gaze is steady, assessing. "I told Steve I was done with matchmaking. That may have been a lie."

Bucky sighs and sinks lower in his seat. "Natasha..."

"I'm not going to try and convince you to go back to him, if that's what you're afraid of. But I _am_ going to tell you that he misses you." She rolls her eyes. "Not that he'll admit it, or anything. Honestly, the moping is becoming a problem." She steals a floret of broccoli. "Ooh, I like this. What'd they do, sauté it with garlic?"

"Yeah, and the tears of my enemies. I collected 'em special. Hands _off_."

"Bit touchy about food, there, Barnes," she says, dodging the fork he jabs at her and snagging another piece.

"I grew up in the Depression. Sue me." He pours her a cup of tea when the waiter brings an extra. "I assume you didn't come all the way to Peru just to tell me Steve's pining."

"No, I came all the way so I could reassure him that _you're_ pining." She sips her tea and smiles, cat-like. "Wish this was legal in the US."

"I've got a bag in my luggage. I won't tell if you won't."

"How's that work?"

Bucky smirks. "Trade secrets. Sort of like that deflection you did, just now. Why are you here?"

She shrugs again, turning her cup in her hands. "Same reason you are, Barnes. Trying to find myself."

"And this meeting is... what? For shits and giggles?"

The small, happy light in the back of her eyes flickers. "Yeah," she says. "Can't a person see their coworker's long-dead best friend?" Her flippant words sound practiced. They hide a sliver of hurt.

Bucky looks away. He clears his throat. "Guess we're all a little rusty on how to be human."

Her smile is crooked. "Think you've got a head start on me, _Bucky Barnes_."

He snorts. "Not really. Got three thousand years of being something else, before that."

It's not fear, he sees in Natasha's eyes, but caution. She's remembering he, too, should not be taken at face value. He sighs, scowling, and nudges his plate toward her. "Never liked broccoli, all that much." It's a lie. They'll never acknowledge this again, but it's an olive branch, and he and Natasha have enough issues in common that she knows better than to turn it down. She takes a piece and watches him.

The tension eases with each cup of tea. They shoot the shit, and Bucky thinks he may have a new friend.

***

He's kneeling with the faithful in Al-Masjid al-Haram, his forehead pressed to the fine wool fibers of his prayer rug and the ancient thrum of the Ka'aba settling deep in his bones, when he realizes he's homesick. He misses Steve, he misses New York, he misses Thor and Natasha, he's even willing to concede to missing Tony. He's traveled enough.

He offers his thanks to God, and buys a plane ticket home.

***

Bucky comes home on an October morning, when the air is crisp and New York's trees send a blaze of color through Midtown. Jarvis greets him in the elevator, welcoming him with a restrained, "Good day, Sergeant Barnes. Captain Rogers is in his suite, would you like me to alert him to your arrival?"

"No, thanks, Jarvis. Let's keep it a surprise, huh?"

"Very good, sir."

Bucky stares at his infinite reflections in the glass, and he thinks he should be nervous—but the feeling in his heart is just like coming home all the way back in 1940, when Steve was small and home meant something different than it does now.

 _No_ , that voice in the back of his mind whispers. _Home is still the same. It's still Steve, no matter where or when you are_.

"Amen," Bucky murmurs, and the elevator doors slide open.

It's the same apartment, slightly messier than usual. He doesn't see Steve, but he can smell peanut oil and pepper frying. His eyes catch on Steve's painting, hung by the door like a talisman, and he pauses to look at it. It's Bucky's outline, standing in a bright-lit doorway with his hand on the doorknob. He squints, but it's hard to tell; there aren't any distinguishing marks within the figure, just solid shadow, and he's not sure whether the figure is leaving or returning.

"Answer's still no, Stark," Steve's voice calls out, and Bucky's heart skips a beat.

"You're breakin' my heart, here, Rogers," he replies, putting the Brooklyn back in his speech. "I didn't even ask."

He hears a clang, and Steve swearing, and then Steve's coming around the corner, wearing sweats and an undershirt with a towel over his shoulder. "Bucky?"

"Yeah, you punk, it's me."

Steve doesn't say anything else, just closes the distance between them with a speed light would envy and wraps Bucky in a crushing hug. "I thought you were Tony," he says.

Bucky grins into his hair. "I figured that out with my smarts."

"Everyone in the Tri-State Area knows you don't have any smarts."

"Yeah, 'cause I love you. Must mean something got mis-wired."

"You're a punk."

"You're a putz."

Steve laughs at that, pulling back so Bucky can see his sunshine grin. "You here to stay?" he asks, soft and hopeful. His blue eyes are bright.

Bucky can't help his own smile. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you to the end of the line, Stevie. Not even angels could pull me away."

"I have it on good authority that angels, _an_ angel, did in fact—"

"Shut up and get over here."

Steve is overflowing with sentiment, too much for Bucky to catalogue, when Bucky draws him in for a kiss. It's desperate and clumsy at first, and Bucky brings up his hands to cup Steve's face between his hands. He feels Steve's blinding happiness, and Bucky clings to him like he's on the cover of a cheap gas station paperback. He doesn't care. Steve is warm and close, smelling of aftershave and fabric softener, and smoke—

"Shit! The stir fry!"

***

They watch the sunset through the Tower windows. Between them, a baseball sits on the table, smeared with time and much handling—a better promise than any words they could muster. The sun sends ripples of silver over the water, and through the thicket of buildings they can just make out the Brooklyn waterfront.

Bucky looks over to Steve, warm contentment spreading in his belly. Steve’s staring back at him, a faint, sweet smile on his lips; it widens to a happy grin when he sees Bucky looking, and he raises their entwined hands to kiss Bucky's knuckles. A soaring feeling overtakes Bucky's heart. He could swear he's flying.

***

Ages pass. Time flows on. Angels do not keep histories as humans do, for they have no need of them; but there are those, aged to near transparency and resonant with the song of the Most High, who remember when an unremarkable one of their number, a bare sixteenth note in the symphony of the Host, fell out of the Pattern and forged his own path. _It came to pass that this angel loved a mortal_ , they whisper in a multitude of voices, and they shake their heads in sadness, for the fate of mortals is not one to which angels keep. _He loved, and when he Returned he would not fight in the Host, for he would obey no commander save the Most High. 'I have seen my only captain fall,' he would say. 'I will follow no other.'_

 _Tell us more_ , the fledglings press. _We wish to hear more of the angel Bucky Barnes._

The elders shuffle their wings and incline toward a quiet, humble individual, impossibly old, impossibly strong; for where the elders grow more diaphanous with time, venting their might into the aether and fading away, this angel is solid, heavy with Grace and an ancient grief long since burnished into wisdom. The younglings quail, for everyone knows Baruchiel is the finest psalmist in the choirs. His strength rivals the Archangels themselves.

 _That is he_ , the elders say. _If you ask, perhaps he will tell you the story of his Captain._

They leave Heaven's youngest in a flutter of wings, and in their wake the fledglings fill the air with the dreams of a thousand innocent minds. They dream of going to Earth; they dream of moving Heaven.

Unbeknownst to them, Bucky hears, and he smiles.

***

END


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liner notes! (Am I this much of a dork to hope y'all care about the research I did? Yeah, a bit. Am I sharing the awesomeness anyway? You betcha.)
> 
> If I screw anything up, feel free to let me know.

Chapter 1: 

•The Great Three refers to the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They all have very similar accounts of angels (in fact they basically overlap), and since this is a syncretic world-build, I decided they're like different divisions within one umbrella corporation. People of the Book, yo.

•"It is measured out and decreed": this is my oblique-ass reference to the Muslim concept al-Qadar, "the divine right and decree." It consists of a couple related terms: "qadha," which is translated as judging in the sense of making a final decision or taking decisive action; the other is "qadr," which means measuring or assessing. I was trying to indicate the preordained nature of the situation, despite the presence of free will; someone said that predestination only permits the choices we would have made anyway. We measure out and decide, but God has already decreed our options and likely actions.

•I have no idea if 1910s/20s Brooklyn had a sizable Romanian population. I made it up because I couldn't resist.

•Moroi: lesser Romanian vampires, because Romanian folklore is so metal it has multiple kinds of blood-sucking fiends. Except, the moroi don't actually suck blood—instead, they drain the life-force out of their victims. They are considered "mortal" vampires, and are (depending on the account) either the offspring of two "immortal" vampires (strigoi) or the shades of children that died before baptism. While strigoi form the traditional, blood-drinking, Dracula-style vamp, moroi are not nearly as strong, and they don't have powers like transformation or invisibility. It seems a reasonable assumption for a superstitious, poorly educated person to make about an angelic avatar who's crappy at passing as human.

•Spiriduşi: little ghoulies and ghosties. The Romanian equivalent of a leprechaun; not necessarily evil, but not always helpful, either.

•Zburător: "One who flies" in Romanian. Sometimes equated with dragons, but more recently described as a handsome demon who visits women in their sleep, akin to an incubus. Basically? Winifred is worried that Bucky is doing unwholesome things to his sisters/Martha-next-door/any other children of the neighborhood, and is confused that he takes to Church so easily (and charms the women there, too; come on, Bucky, you're five years old. Sheesh).

•Baruchiel, if I did my bullshitting right, means something along the lines of "Blessed of God." I wanted something that sounded superficially like Bucky, and was plausibly angelic.

•"Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa": the most well-known line from the Roman Catholic Confiteor (one of the prayers that can be said during a Mass for the confession of sins). my headcanon is that Sarah Rogers had diabetes. Being a nurse, she would know about the special diets Frederick Allen and Elliot Joslin advised prior to the discovery of bovine insulin in 1922, and thus would have theoretically been able to bear an infant to term. However, an infant from a diabetic mother (let alone a diabetic mother not taking insulin) has a much higher risk for developmental/immune deficiencies. Because I'm mean, I had Sarah blame herself for her son's frailty—and worse, for being so irresponsible as to bring a child into the world from her "unworthy flesh" in the first place.

•The Dodgers went by, like, fifty billion different names back in the day. It wasn't uncommon to find a newspaper article that referred to them as the Dodgers in the headline, but call them the Robins and the Superbas in the text. Ugh.

•Actual headline of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on Black Thursday. Frankly, Brooklyn's newspapers were more alarmist than the New York Times, which were cautiously hopeful (and wordy), and no fun at all when you need a period accurate snapshot headline. For shame, NYT.

•Asthma cigarettes, it turns out, were not made from tobacco, but from a variety of herbs (usually nightshades— _Lobelia inflata_ and _Atropa belladonna_ were common—and sometimes Cannabis, depending on the brand). They actually did ease some of the symptoms; unfortunately, they were also mildly hallucinogenic and caused heart palpitations—not a good thing when you're a Steve Rogers.

Chapter 2:

•Y'all probably all know this because tumblr, but I figured I put it down anyway: Harlem was _hella_ -gay in the 20s. There'd be balls with many hundreds of guys in drag, and it was one of the few districts where gay men could, in certain places, be open about their sexuality. If Brooklyn was the seedy underbelly, then Harlem was the glitz and the glam.

Generally speaking Teh Gays weren't all that closeted during the 20s. J.C. Leyendecker, a very famous, very wealthy artist known for, among other things, his iconic Arrow Collar Man, hosted lavish parties with his partner (and model) Charles Beach at their New Rochelle home. There're references to Leyendecker in _The Great Gatsby_. Everyone who was anyone would show up at these flings, which goes to show how much freedom money can buy. In comparison, Brooklynites would have had it very, very rough indeed.

•"With two they covered his feet, and with two they flew": Isaiah 6:2 DRB. "Upon it stood the seraphims: the one had six wings, and the other had six wings: with two they covered his face, and with two they covered his feet, and with two they flew."

•"Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine": a prayer for eternal rest from the Liturgy of the Hours. Translated: "Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen." This was before Vatican II in 1962-5, so services were still held in Latin rather than the vernacular.

•"So also you now indeed have sorrow": John 16:22 DRB. "So also you now indeed have sorrow; but _I_ will see _you_ again, and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you" (emphasis mine). This is Jesus talking about his death and resurrection to the disciples, so it's kind of inappropriate for Bucky to be saying it in this context; then again, Bucky's pretty irreverent when it comes to human religion, anyway.

•"O Lord, the God of my salvation: I have cried in the day and in the night before thee": Psalm 87 DRB. _It's really fucking sad, guys_. The writer is basically in utter despair the whole way through, which is uncharacteristic even for the other sad psalms. I'd put it all down, but it's a bit long.

•Azriel: the angel of death, supposedly. Some Muslim texts name the archangel of death Izrail or Azriel, but it's not officially stated in any of the "official" books (ie: the Torah, Bible, or Qur'an), so it's mega-debatable. The name means "One Whom God Helps."

•"A lesser angel of Gabriel's corps": Raphael is the angel of healers and Michael is the angel of soldiers; Gabriel is the angel of messengers. Bucky is of his corps, which means he speaks approximately a billion languages, and is good with people. Steve, as his charge, is therefore under the banner of Gabriel—and isn't the symbol of Captain America, his message, far more potent than his fighting ability? Now just imagine the kinds of messages the _Winter Soldier_ communicated...

•"Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu": The _Birkhat HaGomel_ , a blessing said after surviving illness, childbirth, or danger. "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who bestows good things upon the unworthy, and has bestowed upon me every goodness." Technically it's supposed to be said publicly, and it has a congregational response, but we've already covered Bucky's laissez-faire attitude toward orthopraxy.

Chapter 3:

•That is a transcript of a real live broadcast of the attack on Pearl Harbor, you can find recordings online. I could have made up my own, but this was cooler, so I fudged the airtime instead.

•Fun fact: the 107th Infantry was a National Guard regiment, and was actually broken up and reorganized during WWII into several anti-aircraft defense battalions before being reformed as the 107th in 1946. It was later decommissioned in the '90s.

Since the 107th didn't have a home base to ship Bucky to for training, I sent him to Camp McCoy, which is where he went according to the museum exhibit. Camp McCoy was the chief training post for new recruits after August '42; if Bucky had been drafted/enlisted before then, he probably would have gone to Fort Dix. McCoy also has the dubious honor of holding not only European and Japanese POWs, but also interned Japanese-American civilians. On the flip-side, the first battalion trained there was the 100th Infantry, composed entirely of Japanese-American recruits (it's entirely possible for Bucky and Morita to have met in Basic—someone fic it).

•Skeezix is a character from the comic Gasoline Alley. My grandmother calls me Skeezix whenever I've got a bad case of bed-head, and she was born in '38, so I figure it's something Steve and Bucky might say.

•"Dumdum" is a nickname for expanding bullets, including hollow-point and soft-point rounds. Originally named after the Dum Dum Arsenal in Calcutta where semi-jacketed rounds were first produced, the Germans decried the British for their use in the late 1800s. They were thus banned from warfare as being "excessive and inhumane." I don't know if this is what Dugan's named after, but I liked the pun that he's scary as hell in battle, and not all that he appears on the outside (ie: not stupid; not a "dum-dum").

•OMFG MARVEL YOU DID NO FUCKIN RESEARCH DID YOU. Cap supposedly rescues GIs from Austria/northern Italy in 1943; American forces weren't even in northern Italy until fall 1944. EXPLAIN THAT. For my part, I just gritted my teeth and went with it.

•"La situation est mauvaise, en France": a hundred thousand thanks to Quicksands, who spot-checked my sketchy Google Translation. "The situation is bad, in France. The Germans are well-established, and are strangling our supply lines. Your countries, they help—but it is not enough."

•"Ich weiß nicht": Again, Google translate. "I don't know what happened! It wasn't me!"

•The Light of the Virtues: the Virtues are the middle level in the second of three ranks of angels. Their purview is over all celestial bodies. Moreover, they're said to be the midwives of miracles and provide courage, grace, and strength. In-'verse they'd normally be the ones in charge of a level-up like Steve's, except this time humans got there first.

•"Libera eas de ore leonis": a line from the Domine Jesu of a requiem mass. Translated: "Deliver them from the jaws of the lion, lest hell engulf them, lest they be plunged into darkness."

Chapter 4:

•I'm not sure if Peggy has a military rank, or if she's more of a civilian liaison; however, imo it would make sense for the SSR to provide one of their top agents some kind of clout against misogynist dickbags (eg: Hodge), especially if she liaises with the military as often as she seems to. Moreover, she is, aside from Col. Phillips (who's busy dressing down Cap), the senior expert onsite for HYDRA intel. It makes sense she would debrief Bucky.

•I seriously doubt Steve would have gotten all the way through 1930s Brooklyn and a USO tour without understanding _exactly_ what that chorus girl was implying—but I liked the exchange, so.

•"But how can any man, even an angel, look after anyone in the field!" My very, very obscure reference to _All Quiet on the Western Front._ It's from chapter two, when Paul Bäumer, the narrator, reflects on the promise the mother of his best friend (who is dying) made him make, to look after him. I was trying to convey that war transcends time or nationality by having an American soldier in WWII quote a German soldier in WWI. *shrugs* It's pretty obscure, so I don't know how well it carried.

•I already addressed the WRONGness of Marvel's history. I'll keep silent about WWII Greece for my own sanity.

•Neak ta are very old, very powerful Cambodian land spirits. They can bless or curse whole nations according to folklore, and it is believed that they can/will cleanse the world of those who piss them off. There was an interesting New York Times article about how a spate of spirit possessions/induced mass faintings of sweatshop workers by angry neak ta are actually changing the working conditions in Cambodian factories. Spirit possession is pretty common as a form of protest when agrarian economies start getting industrialized; what's unusual is that in Cambodia it's actually working. Neak ta get shit done.

•Óscar Romero was the Archbishop of San Salvador from 1977 to 1980. A great proponent of liberation theology, which is sometimes called "Christianized Marxism" by its detractors, he denounced the Salvadoran government for its human rights abuses, the U.S. for its financial aid to the corrupt Salvadoran government, and spent his life's effort to improve the rampant poverty in El Salvador. Over 250,000 people attended his funeral, and his image is one of the ten 20th century martyrs that stand above Westminster Abbey's Great West Door. He has yet to be sainted, but in El Salvador he is often called San Romero, and is unofficially considered the patron of the Americas and the downtrodden. It is because of the crushing irony that I had Bucky assassinate him.

•"Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani?": Matthew 27:46, DRB. One of the sayings of Jesus on the cross. Translated from Aramaic it means "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Some theologians take this to mean Jesus was fully human, and that he genuinely thought he was abandoned in this moment. Naturally this most bleak interpretation is the one I went with for Bucky. :)

Chapter 5:

•The medical train actually exists. A lot of the bitty towns in eastern Russia are too small/poor to have their own clinic, so a train stocked with medical professionals runs through every so often. I read a National Geographic article about it a while back, and I couldn't resist including it.

•"Ave Maria": the Hail Mary prayer, which in conjunction with the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed is used to pray the rosary. Translated: "Hail Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

•Pretty sure there was a bit in the comics where Bucky worked in a community garden in Philadelphia to try and atone for his crimes as the Winter Soldier. I've not read the comics, but I liked the idea of it, so, Philadelphia it was.

•I do not believe there are any full hospitals in Strawberry Mansion. Clinics, yes—but not hospitals. It's _very_ poor, and there's a lot of racial/drug-related violence, and that tends to dissuade developers.

•Cuddling programs are a legit thing. I doubt the Winter Soldier would actually pass the screening; the safety of the babies is far more important than getting cuddlers. _However_. I'm the boss of this fic, and what I say, goes. :)

•I like the dissonance of having an angel take the Lord's name in vain. That's literally the only reason Bucky has such a foul mouth in this story.

•"In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate": the first surah of the Qur'an, called al-Fatiha, or "the Opener." It's central to a Muslim's daily prayers. Again with Bucky's hella-relaxed attitude toward human religious manners.

•Jack Miller (wee!Baruchiel) died during the 1967 Newark Riots. They lasted six days, from July 12 to July 17, and left twenty-six dead and hundreds injured. They began because of a disparity between the demographics of Newark versus the makeup of its police force. It's amazing how little this country has changed.

•At first I thought the propensity in fic for the Winter Soldier to use a Barrett M82 was fanon, because we never really get a good look at his rifle in the movie—until I looked at the movie poster, and yep, he's got an M82. _Fandom_.

•Djinn, Orisha, etc: including this last-minute because I am a derp and put in the Romanian beasties but not the Arabian/African ones. Djinn: a genie. One of the three sapient creatures of Allah, including humans and angels. They're basically fire spirits. They have no innate moral alignment, like humans, but the evil ones are what we call demons. Orishas: the faces of God according to Yoruba spiritual belief/associated diaspora religions such as Santería, Candomblé, etc. They're fond of spirit possession, so it seemed a reasonable thing for Bucky to check for. Obayifo: an Ashanti witch said to feed off fear and despair rather than blood (unless it's blood of children—then it'll make an exception). In that sense, it's rather like the moroi. Also, it's unique in that it's an evil spirit that possesses a living body (there is a theme, here), but can also go walkabout to cause crop blight and sickness. Kpelekpe: Yoruba were-hyena. I shit you not. Their laugh was said to lure the unwary to dinner.

•I learned a lot about the history of basketball and Converse shoes in the making of this fic. They're actually pretty intertwined: basketball was brought to national/international attention by Chuck Taylor, who improved the All-Star shoe company's leading model in the early 20s (hence why they're called Chuck Taylors). Then he went out all across the country to various schools to preach the Gospel of basketball. He'd go in, schmooze the local coach, host a "basketball clinic," and sell shoes out of the trunk of his car afterwards.

•"Salāmun 'Alayka": paraphrased from the Qur'an, 013.022-24. "And those who are patient, seeking the countenance of their Lord and establish prayer and spend from what We have provided for them secretly and publicly and prevent evil with good—those will have the good consequence of [this] home—Gardens of perpetual residence . . . and the angels will enter upon them from every gate, [saying], "Peace be upon you for what you patiently endured."

Chapter 6:

•Curander@: a folk healer in the U.S. and Latin American countries.

•Última: a powerful curandera in Rudolfo Anaya's book, Bless Me, Última. Run, don't walk, to the nearest bookstore and read it.

•"Me gustas mucho": I like you a lot.

•"Relájate": relax.

•"Se murió": he died.

•"Mijo": contraction of "mi hijo," which means "my son."

•"Sí, te puedes": yes, you can.

•"Hermanito": little brother.

•They do indeed play polka on the radio in Pennsylvania. I did a road trip from Boston to Albuquerque once, and I swear to god going past Philly I listened to about an hour of polka out of sheer surprise.

•"And the angels which kept not their principality": Jude 1:6, DRB. I actually like the New International translation better for reasons of clarity ("And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day"), but it wasn't published until 1973 and it's Protestant, to boot. Odds are, Bucky studied the Challoner revision of the Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible.

•"Fear not": Luke 1:30 DRB. "And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God." What the angel Gabriel said to the Virgin Mary to tell her she was pregnant with Jesus. Bucky has some jacked up dreams.

Chapter 7:

•Isaac Asimov, Andre (Alice) Norton, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin. If you haven't read at least one book from each, for shame. On the other hand, I haven't read a single one of Tony Hillerman's books, which I should be ashamed of because they're all set in my home state.

•MY FAVORITE PART: Bucky meets Thor. (That's not true; I have many favorite parts. But this scene was one of the earliest ideas.) Bucky calls Thor a "Dominion"; according to angelic lore, the dominion is the highest level in the middle of three tiers of angels. Their domain is over nations/governance. Given that Thor's Prince of Asgard, it felt appropriate.

•Wyrd: Old English word for fate. What I've described as the Pattern, basically. Technically Thor would call it _urðr_ if I were keeping to Old Norse, but "wyrd" is the better recognized term. Also, "Urðr/Urd" is the name of one of the Norns, so it eliminates confusion. 

•Rauða-Þórr: Old Norse for "Red Thor." In the tumult surrounding the conversion of Scandinavia, the followers of the Old Ways weren't too impressed with the Christian missionaries. They called their God the "White Christ," implying weakness and cowardice (the Vikings were an honor-based warrior culture; they weren't interested in turning the other cheek). In contrast, they held up their own "Red Thor" as a paragon of Norse strength. The two became symbols for the overall struggle between the Christians and Heathens.

•Vaettr: Old Norse cognate of "wight." Bucky calls Thor a dominion, as per his cosmology; Thor returns the favor by calling Bucky a wight according to his.

•"Gracias, Abuelita": thank you, little grandmother (equivalent to Granny, etc.)

•"And as we wind on down the road": That's right, Tony played "Stairway to Heaven" for an angel.

Chapter 8:

•"Where there are two or three gathered together": Matthew 18:20, DRB. From the fuller quote, "Again I say to you, that if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning any thing whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done to them by my Father who is in heaven. For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Primarily used in context of gathering to pass judgments, not to "feel the spirit." Bucky's situation quite literally parallels the conditions of this quote.

•Throne: the bottom rank of the topmost tier of angels. They are as described in the fic: two spinning rings covered with eyes and wings, and whose duty is to dispense the justice of God.

•Uriel: "Light of God." Depending on the source, one of the seven Archangels. He's known as the angel of repentance, who stands at the gates of Eden with a fiery sword; he is often described as being as pitiless as a demon. There is some debate whether it was Uriel or Azriel who killed the firstborn of Egypt during the tenth plague (note: if it was Uriel, that would make Señora Cecilia effectively Santa Sebastiana. Heh). He is also an angel of wisdom and a patron of the arts. 

•So, Westminster Abbey. The Battle of Britain window. It shows the RAF pilots who died in the Battle turning into angels, and below it has an excerpt from Shakespeare's Henry V: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers." I thought it fitting for Bucky to see Falsworth's plaque next to this window, next to a quote talking about veterans baring their scars and saying with pride, We fought together, he and I.

•"Eso! Sí, que es": in Spanish it means "that! Yes, that's it!" In English it sounds like you're spelling S-O-C-K-S. Puns, man.

•Guinea pig is the chief source of protein for many people in Peru. Most houses will have a room set aside for their guinea pig "farms," because they're so easy to raise. In fact, guinea pig is such a significant part of the local diet that the mural of the Last Supper in the Cusco Cathedral shows Jesus and the Disciples eating _cuy_.

•Al-Masjid al-Haram: _the_ mosque in Mecca, the one that pilgrims go to. It holds the Ka'aba, the holiest location in Islam. When people pray toward Mecca, they're actually praying toward the Ka'aba. It was supposedly built by Ibrahim, and the Qur'an says was is the first house built to worship Allah.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand that's it! Here's my [tumblr](http://kaasknot.tumblr.com/post/102533585399/silent-thunder-as-of-a-thousand-wings), if you guys are into that sort of thing. :)


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